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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29922813">Heaven's Half Acre</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/churchkey/pseuds/churchkey'>churchkey</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Band of Brothers (TV 2001)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>AU, Alcohol, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fantasizing, First Time with a guy, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Loss, M/M, Nature, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Recovery, Self-Medication, Summer, Swimming, Torrid Phone Lust, sexual awakening, spirituality</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 21:15:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>21,878</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29922813</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/churchkey/pseuds/churchkey</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the summer of 1946 and Don's not doing great. One night on a drunken whim, he calls up Joe Toye in Pennsylvania, who's in pretty rough shape himself. Together, they begin to reckon with the wounds left by the war (and kiss a lot).</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Donald Malarkey/Joseph Toye</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Heavy Artillery Rare Pair Exchange 2021</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThrillingDetectiveTales/gifts">ThrillingDetectiveTales</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thank you Tec for this fantastic prompt: </p><p>
  <em>Would super love them getting together after the war. Canonically, Don has mentioned that he got a little drunk at least once and called Joe, though it was some years after they'd returned. What if it had happened sooner? And more often?</em>
</p><p>And thank you SO MUCH for all you do for the fandom and HA community! Writing this for you was an honor. I hope you like it &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Most nights, Don just listened in, hiding in the shade of the low branches on the shore while men braver than him cast their lines out into the water.</p><p>“Anyone out there tonight?” someone would ask. </p><p>“I’m here,” someone else would answer. </p><p>And Don would sit in the darkness of his grandma's living room, listening to them flirt and pose and feel each other out. Some called it the Jamline because that was how it worked. If enough of them called the number at the same time, it jammed the circuit and they could all hear each other between the shrill, periodic reminders that <em>your call could not be completed as dialed</em>. He’d also heard it called the Pipeline because the voices seemed to echo from across a great distance, like they were all shouting to each other down a steel pipe. Don liked that idea. Long, narrow pipes snaking all around the city, over the mountains and out into the Pacific. An endless, invisible line stretching on forever, growing smaller and fainter until finally disappearing into the ether.</p><p>That was what Don liked to imagine when he called in, which he did nearly every night. Not because he was lonely, though he was. Not because he was bored. He called the Pipeline because of the possibilities buzzing and crackling inside the strange voices that flowed down the wire and through the receiver, his ear tingling under the promises of a newer, brighter world out there. A place he’d never been before. A place where some part of him believed maybe he’d find the mortar to fill in all the gaps the past two years had scoured out of him. </p><p>There was something vicarious about it too, especially when the guys started shouting out their phone numbers or arranging places to meet. He felt like he knew them all, these detached, solitary men living their detached, solitary lives. Waiting all day for that spark of connection, for the hand reached out in the darkness. Maybe before the war he’d have taken that risk, but things were different now. He was different. </p><p>A wide and permanent rift had opened up between the man he was now and the boy who’d jumped off the roof of his house with only an umbrella for a parachute, who’d crawled across an open field under enemy fire just because he thought he’d spotted a Luger. Dick’s first choice, his go-to, the one he knew he could count on to do as he was told, every time. How his shoulders ached under the weight of that responsibility. How it only grew heavier with each fresh horror, each terrible dawn, and how he’d stayed through it all, loading on more and more, until he couldn’t possibly take another step. And then he did. He kept walking, one foot in front of the other, refusing every opportunity to lay that burden down or let someone else carry it for a while, even when his nerves were as frayed as the hems of his uniform. Because who would do it, if not him? Who would be left to finish the fight and make sure all their pain and sorrow meant something? </p><p>Once, before Hell’s Corner and Jack’s Woods and Roe’s hunched figure slumping toward him through the snow, he might’ve had the foolish courage to shout out his own number or meet them in the secret corners of the city. Now it just felt like all the odds were stacked against him. </p><p>But he liked to listen to them ask each other their deceptively wholesome questions - <em>What color are your eyes? How tall are you?</em> - And he liked the winking modesty in their voices as they described themselves - <em>I study civil engineering at Vanport. I like to read and build model airplanes</em> - And he even liked it when the tone of their voices changed, thickened with the urgent desires they’d called in to satisfy. </p><p>
  <em>You’ve got a sexy voice. It’s giving me a hard on.<br/>
What are you going to do about that?<br/>
Why don’t you come over here and see.</em>
</p><p>That wasn’t the reason Don called the number, or at least, it wasn’t the only reason. More than the thrill of illicit sex, it was comforting to have such tangible proof that there were others out there like him, other men who felt just as adrift. He wondered how many of them had been to war. He wondered if, like him, they ever got that strange, in-between feeling, like they weren’t <em>here</em>, but they weren’t <em>there</em> either. They weren’t anywhere. Maybe that was why he liked calling the number, because in this space with no walls or boundaries, no definitions, they’d managed to carve out a place where, for a little while at least, they belonged. Don would give anything to feel like he belonged somewhere again. </p><p>Most nights, Don just listened, but sometimes he’d wait until the voices went quiet, until the other men had either hung up to call each other directly or headed out into the night in search of company. He’d close his eyes and see himself pressing his mouth to the dark opening of the pipe, feel it cold and rough around his lips, and send his message down the line. He had to believe that somewhere out there, up there, wherever his voice went, that it would find someone. That someone would hear him calling. </p><p>“Are you there?” </p><p>His voice was cracked and thin, like a needle on an old record. He waited a moment and then called out again. </p><p>“Are you there?” </p><p>He clutched the beads in his pocket until the sharp points of the crucifix dug into his palm. He swallowed, and his voice faltered to a whisper. </p><p>“Please. Where did you go?” </p><p>He waited longer. Sometimes he might wait minutes, half an hour, fall asleep with the phone pressed to his ear until the howl of the off-hook tone jolted him awake. And sometimes, if he were lucky, he’d be wrong. The line wouldn’t be deserted. A voice would answer back. </p><p>“Hello? Is anyone there? Hello?” </p><p>“I am,” Don said. “I’m here. Where are you?”</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div>Most nights, Don joined the other guys on his shift for a beer or two at the union hall across the street from the forge and then headed home in time for dinner. Pork chops and fried potatoes, with a salty pan gravy and whatever green thing his grandma had managed to grow in the little raised bed off the side of the house. Sometimes she’d fix him a hamburger steak or clam chowder, and he didn’t have the heart to tell her that nothing ever tasted as good as the Liberty Grill back in Astoria. Nothing tasted like it used to.<p>Living with his grandparents wasn’t as bad as he’d thought it might be. It beat the hell out of slinking home to his folks in Warrenton with his tail between his legs, and anyway, he’d had nowhere else to go. The basement had its own entrance off the back of the house, and Don came and went pretty much as he pleased. Gram never bothered him about where he went or what time he was coming home. She did her best to give him the privacy he needed while also making him feel like no matter how big he got, he’d always be her Donnie.  </p><p>When he’d first moved to Portland, he’d spent his nights after work wandering Northwest, just up the hill from the forge. That was where he’d found the number, scratched into the window of a phone booth. Every night, he’d amble past the walk-up buildings of studio apartments, past the single men who worked downtown or on the riverfront. He liked the looks they gave him from doorways, the flare of approval he saw in their eyes as they took in the bulky shoulders filling his work shirt, the straps of his overalls strained taut across his chest. Sometimes they’d give him a quick nod, a little lift of the chin. “You lost, buddy?” A wink. A tiny, careful smile. </p><p>He knew what they were offering and now he knew that he wanted it too. So much of his life had been thrown into turmoil and confusion since the war, but some things had become more clear than ever before. Like this. Like why, back then, he’d swung so violently back and forth between wanting to break things off with Bernice and wanting to marry her as soon as he could, to dive headfirst under the protective cover of a wife and kids. Now he understood those mystifying urges that used to torment and thrill him as he lay awake in his bunk through so many hot Georgia nights. He’d close his eyes trying to blot it all out, but they’d only appear all the more clearly in his dreams. The hard rounds of muscles shifting under thin white cotton. The dark shadows of sweat spreading across their broad backs, wet biceps shining in the sun, drops flicking from the tips of their hair and hitting his face like the spray off a breaker. </p><p>He understood his dad better too. It didn’t mean it hurt any less or even that he’d forgiven him for sitting down that day and never standing up for them again. But now he knew that sometimes, a punch could land so hard that it shattered something deep inside a man, and when that happened, there wasn’t much he could do except take off his helmet and stop fighting for good. </p><p>And he also understood why he could never bring himself to go see her. Faye. Because she’d want to hear all about Skip as Don knew him, and it troubled him that their friendship and everything he felt for Skip wasn’t a story with a clear beginning, middle, and end. It wasn’t something he could sit down and tell her over lemonade and sugar cookies. If he tried, he supposed he’d start by telling her about how everyone liked Skip, and wanted him to like them. How he had a way of making you feel like you mattered more than anything else in the world, and that when he was with you, it wasn’t because you’d been thrown together by the hands of fate, but because he’d <em>chosen</em> you, and there was simply nowhere else on God’s green earth he’d rather be than here, with you, right now. </p><p>And then it would start to get complicated as he’d try to explain that he’d loved Skip like a brother, but it wasn’t quite the same, and that he’d loved him like a best friend, but that wasn’t right either. What they’d been through together, the impossible limits to which they’d pushed their young bodies, the hell they’d endured even before their war began. The cold and rain and hunger, the crushing sorrow and the brief but perfect moments of absolute joy. All of these had bonded them together in a way that he couldn’t compare to anything else or understand in any other context. </p><p>The truth was that he’d never loved anyone the way he’d loved Skip, and he doubted he’d ever love anyone like that again. </p><p>Often, his mind went back to what they’d told him about not writing to her right away, that he had to wait for “a reasonable amount of time” to pass. But they didn’t tell what that meant. How much time was enough? God, how long would he have to wait until he could just move on and have a life again? His was only just beginning when the world started burning, and after giving up his youth and his peace of mind and the best years of his life, he felt useless and hollow, waiting for someone older and wiser to tell him where the hell he was now and what he should do. How to pick up the broken pieces of the man he’d never have a chance to become and build something new. </p><p>Mostly, he felt stuck in some eternal transition, like when a train stops between stations and you don’t know where you are. You have a sense, but you’re not certain. Outside, it’s darkness for miles, and all you can see is the reflection of your own tired face in the window. He’d thought being back in Eugene might give him his bearings again, but he’d quickly let go of that hope his first night in the Sigma Nu house, when everyone looked so young and vibrant and he felt so old. He just didn’t care about the things that were so important to them. Football games, dances, parties, exams. What did any of that matter anymore? Couldn’t they see that something fundamental was missing now? That nothing would ever be the same again? </p><p>He took the rosary out of his pocket and pressed the crucifix to his lips, the beads cool and dry against the back of his hand. Three Our Fathers, seventeen Hail Marys. Twenty prayers for Skip, wherever he was. </p><p>When he was finished, Don lifted the receiver from the cradle and dialed the number. </p><p>“Is anyone out there tonight?” a voice asked. </p><p>“I’m here,” Don said. “Where are you?”</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div>Don sucked on his cigarette. The tip flared bright orange, like the flower of a machine gun. His eyes followed the trail of smoke as it spread, thinned out, finally dissolved into the mild night air, and then he gazed up at the stars through the patchy branches of the chestnut tree. Once, when he was a kid, he’d asked the priest at St. Mary’s where Heaven was. It was just after they’d taken Grandma Malarkey to Ocean View to visit the graves of his uncles, and his dad had tried to comfort her by insisting that they were in a better place now, but Don needed to know, where was that place?<p>He couldn’t remember exactly what the priest had told him, just that it had confused him even more, and he’d grown up with a vague sense that Heaven was just Somewhere Else, a place he couldn’t see or point to or even imagine. That didn’t seem fair. What was the point of standing around those graves on a beautiful spring day, when he could be shooting marbles or climbing trees, if his uncles couldn’t even see them? He still didn’t know the answer to that, but he understood a little better now the need for a place, somewhere you could go to remember and say what you needed to say, even if no one would hear you. </p><p>He stubbed out his cigarette and took a drink from his glass. Beer made him buzzy and tired, but whiskey sharpened everything. He could see and hear it all, all of it coming back in jarring cuts, like frames of a filmstrip spliced together at random with no regard for continuity. It was horrible and frightening, but in a strange way, it was sort of comforting too, because bringing back all the explosions and treeburst and terrified pleas for help also brought back the voices of his friends. </p><p>He hadn’t written to any of them yet. He supposed that, like with Faye, he was waiting for enough time to pass. A part of him dreaded that they’d all be so different now, that the changes would be too hard for him to take, and it would make him feel even more out of place than he already did. Worse than those letters he couldn’t bring himself to write were the pictures. He had a suspicion that was where his problem had begun, that night last year when he’d taken the company roster photo out of his scrapbook and marked every man’s chest. Seeing all of them so alive and young, with no idea what the coming year held in store for them. Seeing himself among the scores of KIA or SWA, and wondering how he should mark his own chest. What burden could he take up now to even the ledger? What did he owe to them except every goddamn minute of the rest of his life? </p><p>But there was one. One photo he’d taken from the book before he’d shut it away, the only one he could bear to look at. It had been taken during one of those rowdy autumn weekends when they’d wandered around London determined to find something new and exciting, only to wind up at the Palace Pub again, shooting the shit with Pat McGrath. A light rain was falling, little more than a soft mist to shine up their cheekbones and cling like dew to the wool of their uniforms, and there was Joe Toye, the coal miner's son, standing at the gates of Buckingham Palace looking just as regal as any crowned prince. </p><p>It was the quiet dignity in his face, the stoic calm of his shoulders, masking a hurt that cut all the way through to the center of him, like a piece of timber split right down the middle. But it never made him mean; that was the thing Don admired so much in Joe. He was one of those guys who had no idea how much everyone liked him, no idea how handsome he was, how strong, how much they all envied him. </p><p>But Don knew that Joe’s remarkable humility was the flip side of heartbreak, a crushing insecurity that he could never measure up. What did it do to your belief in yourself, Don often wondered, to be told at fifteen that all of those things you saw your friends doing - playing sports, going to homecoming, asking a girl to wear your class ring, cramming for exams, memorizing Sutter’s Mill and the Pythagorean Theorem and Hamlet’s Soliloquy, normal kid things, hell, his American birthright - to be told that all of these nice things are for the other boys. Not for you. For that curtain to drop so suddenly and heavily between you and what you thought you could be, and for Joe to come through that with such compassion and selflessness, such commitment to a cause bigger than himself, despite all his dreams being ground to dust under the hammering of a percussion drill…  Well, it was enough to take your breath away. </p><p>And Don still didn’t understand what he’d ever done to earn the loyalty and respect of a guy like Joe Toye, but he was sure as hell glad for it, because it had quite literally saved his life. Joe had saved his life, that night when he’d only tried to offer the same kindness to another man feeling insecure and ashamed about how he measured up against the rest. But Lowry hadn’t wanted comfort. Maybe he’d figured Don was like all the others, come to make himself feel better by running him down, and he’d simply had all he could take. Don would never forget how small Lowry suddenly seemed with Joe’s thick arms wrapped around his shoulders, the sound of the knife hitting the plank floor of the barracks and the controlled rage in Joe’s voice, <em>“You ever threaten Don Malarkey again and I’ll kill you.”</em></p><p>The way Joe had said his name, like he mattered. Like he was important. For a moment, he got a glimpse of who he was to Joe, felt a warm rush of honor and pride wash through his whole body, that of all his friends in the company, and Joe Toye had plenty, that Don was the one he trusted and confided in. Don had wrapped up that knowledge in tissue paper and tucked it down deep inside, and that was where it had stayed, through everything. Joe’s trust, his friendship, his love, safe and protected in the hidden place between every beat of his heart. </p><p>Whiskey always brought it back. What he’d lost when they’d all scattered to the four corners of the country. What he’d been searching for ever since that long train ride took him further and further from Joe and Bill and Babe and Skip, the pieces of him scattered like seeds across a desolate land. Where did everyone go? They used to be so close he thought he’d go crazy, give anything just for a few minutes of solitude. But he’d grown so used to them that now, not having them around, he felt like a split rail. </p><p>And there was only one thing that soothed him when he was feeling all raw and fresh-hewn like that.  </p><p>The house was dark and quiet, his grandparents having gone to bed an hour ago. He walked lightly through the kitchen and into the living room, sat down at the telephone table and picked up the receiver. But instead of dialing the Pipeline, as he’d intended, some strange urge overtook him and he dialed ‘0’ instead. </p><p>“Long Distance.”</p><p>The operator’s voice was so brisk and efficient that Don just sat there a moment, trying to summon his nerve. </p><p>“Long Distance,” the voice repeated, annoyed. </p><p>Don cleared his throat. “Uh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania."</p><p>“And the number please.” </p><p>“Well I’m afraid that’s the trouble.” He cleared his throat again and his voice took on that polite, ingratiating tone he used to use with the senior officers. “I don’t know it. I wonder if you could help me, I’m looking for a Joe Toye. T-O-Y-E.” </p><p>“One moment, please.” </p><p>The room went eerily quiet again. Don listened to the ticking of the second hand on the mantle clock, to the breeze ruffling the branches of the dogwood trees outside the living room window. To the echo of his own heart thumping in his chest. The operator broke in again. </p><p>“There is no listing for that name in Pittsburg.”</p><p>“What? But there has to be. Could you check again?” </p><p>She sighed. “Sir, I already checked, there is no -” </p><p>“What about - ” For some reason, he couldn’t give up, couldn’t let it go. “What about -” Had he moved to Philly to be with Bill and Babe? Or was he back in the hospital again? God, had he needed another surgery, was he even… He felt his face grow hot as the desperation crept in. “What about - do you keep a record of people who haven’t paid their bills?” </p><p>He heard her sigh again and in the background, some clicking noises, muffled griping, pages being flipped in a heavy book. </p><p>“I have a Joseph Toye in Reading who’s been served his final delinquency notice, but I can’t guarantee that -”</p><p>“That’s him!” Don’s excitement rang like a bell through the silence of the living room. He dropped his voice. “Thank you.”</p><p>“Would you like me to try to connect you?”</p><p>“Yes,” Don said urgently. “Please.”</p><p>The phone rang and rang. Don was nervous all of a sudden and he didn’t know why. The line kept ringing and he felt his heart begin to sink. In a moment the operator would come back on and tell him that no one was home and that she would have to disconnect his call, and then he’d have no choice but to trudge down the steps to the basement and try to forget all the memories he’d been so foolish to let come flooding back again. He was about to hang up on his own before she could cut in when the ringing stopped suddenly and he heard a groggy voice husk a tired “Hello?”</p><p>“Hello? Is that Joe?” </p><p>“It’s me.” A beat, and then Don heard the voice again, a bit louder. “Who the hell is this?” </p><p>“It’s Malarkey.” Don tried to temper his glee. “It’s Don Malarkey, Joe. How the hell are ya?” </p><p>“Malark?” Joe sounded muddled and foggy, like he was coming out of anesthesia, but underneath that, a tone of soft affection began to creep into his voice. “What the hell are you doin’ calling me at two in the morning?” </p><p>“Is it -” Don looked at the mantle clock again and laughed as he remembered the time difference. “Oh shit, Joe. I’m sorry. I guess I’ve had a little to drink.” </p><p>Joe laughed too, a quiet rumbling sound that sent a sudden flash of heat buzzing through Don’s body. He tried to ignore it. </p><p>“Me too,” Joe said, and as their laughter died down, Don realized that he had no idea what he wanted to say to Joe now that he had him on the line. He hadn’t the faintest clue where to begin. </p><p>“How’ve you been, Joe?”</p><p>“Alright, I guess.” A pause, the sound of liquid sloshing against the sides of a bottle. Don thought he might say more, but he didn't. </p><p>“What are you doing tonight?” </p><p>Joe hummed. “Oh. I'm just sitting here. Looking out the window.” </p><p>“Yeah?” Don settled deeper into the chair, feeling his body grow heavy from the booze and the lateness of the hour. “What do you see?”</p><p>“Not much, Malark,” Joe said with a tired sigh. “Not much.” </p><p>There was another pause, and Don wondered if maybe this had been a bad idea. It wasn’t that Joe felt like a stranger or that Don wanted to hold back; he desperately wanted to say everything, tell Joe everything he’d learned about himself and what it all meant to him, what he struggled with, the terrible dreams that troubled his nights and came back in flashes throughout the long days. But he just didn’t know how to begin, or if Joe would even want to hear it. </p><p>“How’d you get my number anyway?”</p><p>“Directory assistance,” Don said. He was about to tell Joe that he’d better pay his bill soon or they’d come and take his telephone away, but he stopped himself. Joe’s money troubles were probably another source of shame for him, and anyway, it was none of Don’s business. </p><p>“How’d you end up in Reading?”</p><p>“My sister,” Joe said simply. “She took me in for a while after I lost my job at the mine. Got a place of my own now.”</p><p>“That’s great, Joe.”</p><p>There was that laugh again, only this time his voice sounded harsher, sharp and brittle around the edges. </p><p>“It’s a shithole.”</p><p>“Well you’re doing better than I am,” Don said. “I’m living in my grandma’s basement.”</p><p>“Bullshit.” Don could see the grin stretch slowly across his face, and he realized that he was grinning too. </p><p>“It’s true. I’m in Portland now, working my old job at the machine works.”</p><p>“You’re not in college, Malark?” Joe sounded upset by the news, and it took Don off guard. </p><p>“No,” Don began evasively. “No, that didn’t work out.” </p><p>He felt like he ought to say more, like he owed it to Joe somehow. But Joe didn’t ask about it, just hummed and mumbled “yeah”, as though he knew exactly what Don was thinking. </p><p>“I’m glad you called,” Joe said. “It’s good to hear your voice.”</p><p>Don leaned onto his elbow on the arm of the chair.</p><p>“It’s good to hear yours too.” He wet his lips and let his eyes fall softly shut. “I’ve missed you.”</p><p>The silence lingered between them like an old song. </p><p>“I’ve missed you too, buddy.” </p><p>Don’s voice dropped to a murmur. “Joe…”</p><p>There was a scuffle on the other end of the line, a sound like a stack of dishes balanced precariously on a ledge of a table had just fallen to the floor, and Joe swearing in frustration. </p><p>“Sorry,” he mumbled into the phone. “Goddamn crutches.” </p><p>“Oh.” Don blinked and sat up straighter. He looked again at the clock. </p><p>“Hey Joe -”<br/>
“Hey Malark -” </p><p>They laughed softly. </p><p>“What?” Don asked. </p><p>“I was just thinkin’, this call must be expensive.” </p><p>“It’s alright,” Don said. “It’s Saturday. And I just got paid.”</p><p>“Still,” Joe said. “I’d better let you go. Thanks for calling, Malark.”</p><p>“Joe, wait -” </p><p>The line was quiet again, the current heavy with all the things Don wanted to say.</p><p>“Can I -" He twisted the telephone cord around his finger, turning the fleshy pad a deep, dark red. "Would it be alright if I called you again sometime?” </p><p>“Sure.” He heard Joe breathe into the receiver and could almost feel it soft and warm against his ear. “I’d like that.” </p><p>“Good.” Don smiled, buoyed by the sincerity in Joe’s voice. “Night, Joe.”</p><p>“Night, Malark.” </p><p>After he hung up, Don called the Operator again to see what he needed to do to get Joe’s bill paid. He’d get it in the mail tomorrow, he promised her, and though she couldn’t promise him in return that the phone company wouldn’t disconnect his service in the meantime, she’d make a note on the account. All he could do was hope that they’d get his money and resolve the debt by next weekend, because he had every intention of making good on Joe’s offer. It gave him something to look forward to, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt that way about anything. </p><p>Down in his bedroom in the basement, Don slipped out of his trousers and let them fall in a heap on the rug. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he opened the drawer of his nightstand and placed Skip’s broken rosary gently inside. Next to them lay the photo of Joe in London. He picked it up and held it carefully between his fingers as he slid his bare legs between the sheets. For a few minutes he just lay there looking at Joe’s body in black and white, at the sharp lines of his uniform and the cocky thrust of his hips as he leaned back onto his elbow on the granite wall. Then he began slowly to stroke the pad of his thumb in circles around Joe’s arm, his leg, tracing a line across his shoulders and down his chest, while under the blanket his other hand gripped his stiff cock, pumping up and down with mindless, gasping urgency. </p><p>“Joe,” he breathed, ragged, his eyes falling shut as his head fell back heavily against the pillow. He came with a quiet, breathy moan, the photo pressed close to his trembling heart.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In the weeks following that first phone call, Don felt himself constantly pulled in opposite directions, rocked so frequently back and forth between the appeals of his rational mind and the deep, unknowable impulses of his heart that it felt sometimes like he was stuck on a teeter totter. During the daylight hours, he did everything he could to avoid thinking about Joe, reciting to himself a litany of logical reasons why it would only come to grief. </p><p>
  <em>You’re imagining it.<br/>
He doesn’t feel the same way about you.<br/>
And even if he did, he’s three thousand miles away.<br/>
And even if he weren’t, you’re in no shape for this anyway.<br/>
And even if you were, it still wouldn’t change the fact that you can’t talk to him again until Saturday.</em>
</p><p>But after the sun slipped down below the horizon and the heat of day faded to night’s chilly sighs, Don felt his reason flicker out like the embers of a dying fire. Night was the kingdom of memory and desire, and they danced around him like pale phantoms, like grainy images projected onto the darkness. Past and present merging with dreams Don thought he’d given up long ago, and new ones too, calling out to him in the gentle rasp of Joe’s voice. </p><p>Even through the static and distortion, it still had the power to transport Don right back to London, to the Regent Palace Hotel, and the way Joe’s voice would get all throaty and hoarse as the hours wore on. The look of shame and frustration in his eyes as Don reached out to him, begging him to come in from off of that glass roof, how he hadn’t crashed through it, a damn miracle. How meek and frail those powerful shoulders felt as they shook in Don’s arms, his tears spreading in a damp circle on Don’s uniform. </p><p>“You won’t tell anyone about this, will you Malark?” he sniffled, wiped his eyes. </p><p>“Of course I won’t, Joe.” </p><p>That night Joe had slept on the floor so Don could have the bed, and all Don could think about was how badly he wished it were just the two of them in that room, and he could hold Joe close, keep him warm and take away all those reasons he thought he needed to go climbing out on glass roofs and terrifying his friends. </p><p>During the week, he clung to the insipid comfort of routine. Shower. Shave. Eat breakfast with the folks. Watching the blur of houses through the bus window melt into the towering sandstone mountains of downtown and the wide industrial yards of the sawmill and machine works by the river. Then dropping his welder’s shade over his eyes and not flipping it up again until the lunch whistle blew, losing himself in the white-blue flame at the end of his iron as he subdued stiff lines of copper into fluid, seamless bonds. It was good work for taking your mind off of things. </p><p>In this way, Don’s life between weekends would roll on from one day to the next, until Saturday finally came around once again. He’d wait until after his grandparents had gone to bed and then take his seat in the hard chair of the mahogany telephone table, feeling his heart begin to beat a little faster with each crank of the dial. </p><p>“Hello?”</p><p>The blush rising in his cheeks as a tiny flame began to grow and expand within him. </p><p>“Hey Joe.”</p><p>A soft intake of breath. </p><p>“Hey Malark.” </p><p>Usually, they’d talk of small things for a while, though none of it ever felt small to Don. Every word they said to each other was full and ripe, like blackberries bursting on his tongue. The weather. His job. What Joe’s sister had fixed him for supper. It reminded him a little of those conversations on the Pipeline, men exchanging the most mundane details in their lives in voices thick with unspoken passion. He worried Joe would hear it in his voice too, so he’d try pulling the conversation to more serious matters, but Joe would always manage to pull it right back. It was a constant tension between them, Don wanting to talk about things like money and Joe’s leg and his VA benefits and whether he was really getting along okay or if he was barely hanging on. But Joe only wanted to talk about the past. </p><p>Nights they both remembered only in half-tones, each adding their own impressions until they’d settled on the version that made the most sense. Weekend passes and night marches and wrestling matches, hangovers and bar fights. Don got the sense that these were the memories Joe treasured more than anything, like they were a place he could escape to when his life now had him feeling used up and wasted, and Don was his partner on these joyrides into the sunset. He didn’t mind that, but he didn’t want to pretend that these were all they had between them, a few wild, drunken weekends of asking for forgiveness rather than permission. There was a whole other life they’d lived together and Don wanted to talk about that too. </p><p>“You remember in Holland, when those panzers split us in two? Me and Bill in Veghel, you and the rest in - what the hell was the name of that town?”</p><p>“Uden,” Joe said evenly, the tone of joy and mirth now gone from his voice. “Yeah, I remember. I thought for sure you guys were dead.” </p><p>Don swallowed around the sudden ache in his throat. “Yeah. Me too.” </p><p>They were quiet as the memories rose around their ankles like the tide. The chaos and confusion of being surrounded again, bullets flying from every direction, and the terrible, frantic screams. He’d thought the shelling would never stop. After a moment, Joe’s voice cut through the watery silence. </p><p>“I have dreams like that sometimes.”</p><p>“Like what?” </p><p>Joe didn’t say anything. </p><p>“Like what, Joe?”</p><p>“Like you’re somewhere and you need my help, and I can’t get to you. I can hear you shouting for me, and I can’t get to you.” Joe’s voice rose in pitch, became strained and thin. “I know if I can just get to you, I can save you, but there’s too much - “ His voice broke. “And I can’t -” </p><p>Don didn’t speak, just sat there in the stillness and let Joe compose himself. He could hear him taking deep breaths in and out of his nose. When he could tell Joe had settled down, he picked up the conversation again. </p><p>“I get those too.”</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>But his nightmares were different, and he should have told Joe about them. That instead of an unbearable guilt that he hadn’t done more, hadn’t given his last full measure of devotion, it was an icy, crippling fear, having to watch Roe trudge closer and closer toward him through the snow, and knowing what he was going to say. Knowing the sorrow that would fall on him like a wall, pressing him down so hard he couldn’t move. Sometimes when he woke up, he still felt that paralyzing fear and sadness, and it took him a minute or two to remember that he could move his limbs, could sit up and stand on his own two feet. He should have told him all of this, but he didn’t. Instead, he put the spotlight back on Joe. </p><p>“How’re you sleeping these days?” </p><p>He heard Joe take a sip from a bottle. </p><p>“Not great.” </p><p>“Me neither,” Don said. “Sometimes I drink a little whiskey to help me fall asleep, but I always wake up a couple hours later.”</p><p>“That’s why I make sure to get good and drunk,” Joe said, and they both laughed awkwardly. “Speaking of that.” </p><p>Don heard the hollow swish of the bottle again, and neither of them laughed. </p><p>The next week when Don tried calling, Joe wasn’t there. He let the phone ring for a full minute before hanging up and trying again. But Joe didn’t pick up that time either, and he didn’t pick up the next time, ten minutes later, or the time after that. Finally, Don decided that there were three possible explanations: either Joe wasn’t home, or he was passed out, or something awful had happened and he couldn’t get to the phone. Since there was nothing he could do about it anyway, he tried not to worry. </p><p>Of course, there was another explanation, but Don could scarcely bring himself to contemplate it. At least, not until he’d gotten himself good and tight and was sitting in his shorts and undershirt on one of the shabby, mismatched armchairs in the basement. The braided rag rug was scratchy under his bare feet as his fingers left sweaty, pathetic smudges along the full length of Joe’s body in the photograph. He didn’t feel guilty for taking this pleasure under what he knew could be seen, in a certain light, as false pretenses. Instead, Don just felt uncertain, lost, and terribly confused. For a little while, Joe had been an anchor to him, his static line, but now he was in freefall again. He fell asleep there, slumped against the hard back of the chair, and woke up stiff and shivering.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div>The following weekend was the hottest of the summer. A slick sheen of sweat covered Don’s face and the back of his neck and trickled down his ribs under his shirt as he cut the grass and replaced the deck boards that the winter rains had rotted to mush. He’d thought maybe Joe would call on Sunday, or even during the week when rates were higher, just to let Don know that he was alright. But he hadn’t, and Don couldn’t say he was all that surprised. He suspected Joe’s money troubles were even worse than he thought, but he didn’t know how to ask him about it without punching a hole through Joe’s dignity, so he didn’t.<p>He told himself that he hadn’t yet made up his mind about whether he was going to try calling Joe again, but he knew that was a lie. Of course he was going to call. On some level, he’d been counting every minute that had passed since last Saturday. He was wound up tighter than a clock and didn’t know what to do except run himself down. </p><p>This time, Joe picked up after one ring. </p><p>“Hello?” Joe's voice sounded tense, like he'd been waiting for him. </p><p>“Hey Joe.” </p><p>“Hey Malark.” He exhaled a relieved laugh. “I didn’t know if you were gonna call.” </p><p>“Sure I was.” </p><p>“Even though I stood you up?” </p><p>“You’re not getting rid of me that easily.” He sat up straighter in the chair, draping his arm over the back and shifting to turn his body toward the phone. “So what happened, anyway? You get a better offer?”</p><p>“Nah, nothing like that,” Joe murmured. “Bill was having a Fourth of July party. I told him I wasn’t coming so he and Babe drove up here and strong-armed me.”</p><p>“You - you saw Bill?” </p><p>The pleasing hum in Don’s stomach began to turn sour, and then flared again with a heat he recognized as anger. Not at Joe, and not really at Bill either. Just at the whole situation, that someone else had gotten to see Joe and spend time with him while he was sweating over a forge three thousand miles away. He scolded himself, telling himself he had no right to be jealous. That was crazy. But it did nothing to quell the riot in his heart.</p><p>“How was it?”</p><p>“Alright, I guess,” Joe said. “I told them about how you’ve been calling me.”</p><p>“Oh yeah? What’d they think of that?”</p><p>“They wanna know why the hell you don’t call them. Or write.” </p><p>Now, on top of the jealous anger, Don felt guilty for having let himself turn into such a hermit over the past year. But there was something else too. Excitement again, or maybe pride, that Joe had told them about their phone calls, as though having witnesses to this delicate flower struggling to force its way up through all the ground between them gave it more dimension. Unless he was dreaming again, and there wasn’t anything there at all. It was all so mixed up and confused.</p><p>“I should,” Don said. “I know.” </p><p>“We talked about you, though.” Joe’s voice had taken on a sandy softness, like running a rough palm over a piece of silk. “It was nice.” </p><p>“Yeah? What’d you talk about?” </p><p>“You and Skip, mostly. How thick you guys were.” Joe chuckled. “How pissed you got at Winters when he split you up.” </p><p>Don felt his heart sink as all those feelings churning inside of him began to slowly fade away like mist, replaced by a haunting sadness. </p><p>“Yeah. I was pretty steamed up about that." </p><p>And it was true. Don remembered how close he’d come to losing his temper that day, fuming to Skip about how much he supposed Winters would like it if the Colonel showed up one day and transferred <em>his</em> best friend to a different battalion, without any reason or warning. Don could hear Skip’s voice, see his shining, friendly face. <em>”Aw, cheer up Don,”</em> he’d said. <em>"We’re kinda like the President and Vice-President, if you think about it. They can’t have us in the same location, it’d be a threat to national security.”</em></p><p>“He wasn’t, though,” Don continued. “Said it just meant that we were too important to risk losing both of us.” </p><p>“Well, he was right,” Joe said.</p><p>“He was smarter than people gave him credit for. They thought because he was smiling all the time he must not have much going on upstairs, but he did. He was just a happy guy.” Don sighed. “I wish I were more like him.”</p><p>Joe let Don’s words drop into the silence. Then he spoke again.</p><p>“I remember how much he liked music. Both of you.”</p><p>“We didn’t <em>like</em> music, Joe. We <em>loved</em> it,” Don said, brightening. “We lived for it. I’d never met anyone who was as crazy for Glenn Miller as I was, until I met him.”</p><p>“Remember how you two used to sit in the PX listening to the jukebox?”</p><p>Don laughed. He closed his eyes and invited the memory to come in; surely that one couldn’t hurt him. </p><p>“Everyone else is getting ready to go to the bar, have some drinks, dance with some girls,” Joe said. “And here’s you two, sitting on the floor by the jukebox with your Cokes, like a coupl’a bobby soxers.”</p><p>“We were tired,” Don said weakly. “We just wanted to relax and listen to our music.”</p><p>The laughter subsided to quiet little rumbles in their chests and a pleasant stillness descended upon them. </p><p>“You still sing, Malark?” </p><p>“Sometimes,” Don said. “Mass, I suppose. That’s about it.”</p><p>“That’s a shame. You got one of the prettiest voices I ever heard.”</p><p>Don felt his cheeks redden. “Oh, stop,” he said quietly. </p><p>“It’s true,” Joe insisted. “Sometimes, when I was in the hospital, I’d try to remember you singing.”</p><p>“You did?” Don blinked, thrown by the intimacy of the confession.</p><p>“Yeah. I did.” Joe’s voice had dropped so low that Don had to really concentrate to hear him. “But it wasn’t as good as the real thing.” </p><p>Don hummed softly, a sound barely audible, even to himself. He took a deep breath. </p><p>“What do you want to hear, Joe?” he asked. “What are you in the mood for? You want a little Sinatra, a little <em>Saturday night is the loneliest night of the week</em>,” he sang in an exaggerated croon. </p><p>“No,” Joe said. “I don’t think so.”</p><p>“What then?”</p><p>Joe waited, dragging the moment out until Don thought something might snap. </p><p>“Sing me one of the old songs, Donnie”</p><p>The old songs, from back home. The ones Joe used to sing so horribly off-key, to comfort himself or to take their minds off of where they were. The ones Gram sang while she kneaded bread or hung the wash out on the line to dry. </p><p>“I don’t know if I can remember,” Don said. </p><p>“Try.”</p><p>The wind kicked up, rustling the leaves against the window and bringing the rich and heady scent of dogwood blossoms on the warm breeze through the screen. Don closed his eyes and rested his head back against the edge of the chair. </p><p><em>“Oh the summer time has come,”</em> he began singing in his sweet tenor. <em>“And the trees are sweetly bloomin’</em>. Here, Joe joined him in that comically flat baritone. They chuckled softly, and then went into the refrain a bit louder, a bit more confidently now that they were singing it together. </p><p>
  <em>“Will ye go, lassie go<br/>
And we’ll all go together<br/>
To pull wild mountain thyme<br/>
All along the bloomin’ heather”</em>
</p><p>Don struggled to remember the next verse, the result a nonsensical patchwork of scraps and images that still conveyed the spirit of the song, if not the letter. When he got to the verse about ranging all the wilds and bringing back their spoils to the arms o’ my dearie, he let the melody trail off and a thick silence expanded between them, ringing with all the things he was thinking and feeling just then, and everything Joe was thinking and feeling too. Don was more sure than he’d ever been about anything that in that moment, these were one and the same. </p><p>“Why’d you’d stop?” Joe asked. </p><p>Don sighed. “I just... “ He pressed his fingertips hard against his eyelids. “I just wish we could go someplace like that. I wish I could take you someplace where we didn’t have to worry about anything.”  </p><p>“Do you know a place like that?”</p><p>Don thought of summers on the Nehalem, setting out in his little boat just after breakfast to fish and swim and hunt and shift for himself. Nights under a blanket of stars, his little campfire a tiny pinprick of light on the edge of the continent. </p><p>“Maybe we could find one.” </p><p>He heard a sound like Joe was moving, shifting his body around, finding a more comfortable position. </p><p>“What are you talking about Malark?” </p><p>Don sat up straighter and leaned forward, animated all of a sudden by the simple, invigorating pleasure of making plans. </p><p>“What if I strong-armed you?” </p><p>Joe laughed. “What?” </p><p>“I mean it. I’ll send you the train fare. You could come out here for a couple weeks, we could go camping, fishing. I’ll show you the mountains and the meadows and the coast and…” He trailed off, caught up in a daydream.</p><p>“You should be saving your pennies for college, Malark.”</p><p>Don laughed, a clipped, bitter sound. “I don’t think that matters anymore. Come on, Joe. I’ll take care of everything. All you have to do is get yourself on that train.” </p><p>Joe was quiet again. Don heard him take a series of long, pensive breaths. “It’s not that easy.” </p><p>“I know, but…” He dropped his hand to his lap and ran his thumb back and forth over the ridge of beads in his pocket, like rubbing a fetish for good luck. “Say you’ll think about it, at least.” </p><p>“Will that make ye happy then?” Joe’s voice was playful and affectionate again, and tinged with that charming brogue that only came out when he was drunk or in a particularly good mood.</p><p>“Yes. It would.” Don felt the brilliant light of hope begin to warm his heart, blazing like the sun. </p><p>“Alright, laddie. I’ll think about it.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Joe was the last one off the train. </p><p>Don hurried down the platform and reached the car just as the porter was offering his hand to help him down the steps. Joe gave the man a little wave and gripped the handrail harder, the effort to lift and bend his right leg visible in his strained face. Don’s arm shot up above the sea of disembarking travelers. </p><p>“Joe!” </p><p>He looked up. A circumspect smile began to slowly kindle in his face, and his brown eyes shone warm and friendly under the brim of his rumpled felt hat. </p><p>“Hey Malark.” </p><p>“You made it.” Don’s voice emanated happiness and relief and underlying these, a bit of wonder too. </p><p>“Finally,” Joe said. “This is one hell of a big country.” </p><p>For a little while they just stood there shaking hands, looking at each other like they could hardly believe the other was real.</p><p>“Good trip?” Don asked. </p><p>Joe tipped his head to the side in a little shrug. “Alright, I guess.” </p><p>Don realized with a sudden chill that ‘alright’ could mean something very different than it used to. Now, it probably wasn’t a reflection of the reserve and diffidence he remembered so well. He thought of those labored, halting steps down the stairs of the train car, and how little things like lifting his bag down from the luggage rack or getting himself into the sleeping compartment must have each been their own private battle, and he felt a bit guilty that he hadn’t considered how much Joe would have to conquer in just getting himself here. </p><p>But he’d done it. He’d gotten on that train and traveled three thousand miles, over mountains and valleys, through the cities and across the plains and rivers and the rolling green hills of the heartland, just to see him. That had to count for something.</p><p>Don’s eyes fell to the duffel bag Joe was holding by his side, a pair of steel forearm crutches laid across the top between the handles. “Let me take that.” </p><p>A faint, hesitant wrinkle appeared briefly in Joe’s forehead, and then he gave Don a little nod and handed the bag over. As they walked across the platform, Don was awkwardly aware of the span of his steps and he tried to keep them shorter so as not to get ahead of Joe, who, despite the stiffness of his gait, didn’t appear to have much trouble keeping up. But by the time they made it out to the parking lot, he had to stop for a minute to catch his breath. </p><p>“Sorry,” he said, looking down at the paving stones. “I’m not used to walking that far.” </p><p>“No, I’m sorry,” Don stammered. “I shouldn’t have - I mean, I should have - shit. I’m sorry,” he said again.</p><p>Joe took a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and shook one out, catching it between his lips. He offered the pack to Don and then produced a book of matches from the same pocket. After lighting both of their cigarettes, he took a long puff and closed his eyes as he blew the smoke out again in a wispy cloud above their heads. </p><p>“What time is it here?” </p><p>Don checked his watch. “Just past seven.” </p><p>Joe nodded and took another contemplative drag on his cigarette.</p><p>“Are you tired?” Don asked. “You want to just go to my grandma’s house? Or we could go get some dinner, if you’re hungry. There’s a drug store a few blocks from the station, makes good sandwiches, nothing fancy, but that way if you forgot anything - of course, you’re welcome to use any of my stuff if you did -” he stopped, stifling a grin at how transparently eager he sounded. “Where do you want to go, Joe?”</p><p>Joe squeezed Don’s shoulder and Don could feel the damp heat of his palm through the thin cotton of his shirt. </p><p>“Anywhere, Malark. Long as it’s with you.”</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div>After he’d loaded Joe’s bag into the backseat of his grandparents’ Oldsmobile, Don got Joe to admit that he could use a drink, so they walked to a bar across the street from the train station, where they had burgers and beers in a tight, high-backed booth that gave them at least the illusion of privacy, if not the real thing, not that they needed it anyway. The conversation was innocuous and superficial, just chatter really, about Joe’s trip and Don’s grandparents and if the weather they were having was typical for this time of year or if it wasn’t usually this hot. But despite the mundane talk and the sparse Monday crowd and the general malaise that had settled on all of downtown as the sun began to set, the night had a Friday night feeling to it, alive with the possibilities in all that delicious freedom stretched out ahead of them.<p>When the check came, Don paid it quickly, pretending not to hear Joe when he asked how much he owed him. </p><p>After that, Don took Joe on an aimless, meandering circuit of the different neighborhoods of Portland. Feeling no strong connection to the city, Don’s skills as a tour guide were rather casual and random, driving them first in one direction for a few miles and then turning around when he remembered a pretty drive or a park or a scenic overlook he thought Joe might like to see. Joe stayed fairly quiet. Sometimes he asked Don about a particular building or geographical feature, but mostly he just gazed out the open window, sometimes craning his neck to look back over his shoulder, like he was worried he’d missed something. </p><p>Every once in a while Joe would turn his head and catch Don looking at him, and he’d smile in that shy, enduring way Don remembered, and Don couldn’t help but smile back, his face breaking into a bright, beaming grin that hid nothing. Then they’d look out the windshield again, their eyes focused on the road ahead of them, but Don had a strange feeling that Joe was still looking at him, seeing everything, and that they were both being pressed slowly under the weight of all the expectations they’d conceived and grown and nurtured into being over the past four years. He felt like if they didn’t do something about it soon, it would crush them both. </p><p>When the evening sky had faded from pale gold to steel gray to a deep, thick indigo, Don began heading North, toward the Willamette River. He glanced across the seat and looked at Joe. The streetlamps had come on now and every time they passed one, a halo of soft, yellow light lit up the line of his profile.</p><p> “Would you like to see my favorite place in Portland?” </p><p>Joe’s shoulders rose and fell in a coy little shrug.</p><p>“Sure, that’s why I came.” </p><p>The imposing concrete columns of the St. Johns Bridge cast a shadow even blacker than the hills that surrounded the city on all sides. Don slowed to a stop and killed the engine. A calm, almost delicate silence filled the car as they looked up, beyond the arches of the columns to the bridge above, its green Gothic spires and towers illuminated majestically against the night sky. </p><p>“Wow,” Joe murmured. “That’s really something.”</p><p>“All steel suspension,” Don said proudly. “Longest one like it west of Detroit.”</p><p>Joe hummed. The sound struck Don as being deeply intimate, and he felt his cheeks redden, the blood rushing through his body, warming every part of him. </p><p>“And look over there.” He pointed at something out in the distance beyond the windshield. “You see those lights over there? On the other side of the river? That’s Monarch. That’s where I work.” </p><p>But Joe wasn’t looking across the river. He was looking right at Don, an inscrutable smile playing at the edges of his lips. Don’s heart began to race. He dropped his hands to the steering wheel and gripped it as tight as he could, watching his knuckles turn white and then pink again when he released it. </p><p>“Hey, Joe.” He stared down at his hands. “I - uh.” He swallowed. “I should probably explain something.” </p><p>“About what, Malark?” Joe’s voice had its usual rasp, but was gentle as a whisper. </p><p>“About me.” Don took a long, deep breath to calm himself. “And you. And… how I feel about you.” </p><p>There was a long pause that lingered awkwardly. Don dropped his head back against the headrest and swore under his breath. Then he felt Joe’s hand on his arm, giving his bicep a strong, reassuring squeeze. </p><p>“It’s alright, Donnie. You don’t need to explain anything.” </p><p>Don looked up from the steering wheel and into Joe’s face again, and the intoxicating combination of familiarity and desire and understanding he found there flipped a switch in him, and he wasn’t afraid anymore to slide across the seat and wrap his arm around Joe’s shoulders, to hold that sharp jaw in his palm and kiss him, finally. To catch Joe’s lip between his and suck and tease and explore, feeling a sudden current of lust shoot through him like electricity as the tip of Joe’s tongue crept into his mouth to brush the tip of his. </p><p>“This alright?” he asked, breathless, resting his forehead against Joe’s. </p><p>“Yeah.” </p><p>And then Joe was kissing him again, moaning a little into his mouth when Don turned onto his side and wedged his thigh between Joe’s legs, grinding his erection against the hard pressure of Joe’s hips. But when he slid his hand along Joe’s right thigh, feeling the stiff leather straps of the prosthesis through the leg of his pants, Joe went still and backed away, curling his body into a protective shell against the door.</p><p>“What?” Panic surged through Don and he moved his hands away quickly, raising them as though to show he wasn’t carrying a weapon. “Oh Jesus, I’m sorry, Joe,” he said, stricken.</p><p>“No,” Joe said forcefully. “It’s not that, I just.” He looked into Don’s eyes, his brow wrinkled with worry. “I just haven’t done this since…” </p><p>“Oh.” </p><p>Don blinked a few times as the panic that had seized him moments ago began to dissolve, replaced again by the hot urgency pulsing between his legs on every heartbeat. </p><p>“Well, I haven’t done it ever.” </p><p>Joe smiled tenderly at him, and Don could practically feel the affection pouring like waves from his dark eyes. “Not ever?” </p><p>Don shook his head. “Not with -” he wet his lips nervously. “Not with a guy.” </p><p>A brief look of sadness, or maybe regret floated over Joe’s face, and then his smile faded as he sat forward and began to open his fly. Don wasn’t sure what to do so he just watched, transfixed by the flaps of Joe’s trousers, the patch of smooth, creamy skin below his navel, the dusky thatch of hair, and then the full length of his shaft, darker at the base and changing to a deep reddish-pink at the head. Don glanced quickly into Joe’s face and, seeing in Joe’s nervous half-smile what he took for approval, began to lower his head toward Joe’s lap, but Joe stopped him. </p><p>“Just use your hand.”</p><p>Joe didn’t give Don a chance to feel embarrassed. He kissed him again, deep and hungry, his tongue doing vulgar things that Don had only ever fantasized about, and tugged impatiently at the fly of Don’s trousers. Don hastily unbuttoned them and his shorts too, and then his needy, breathy moans punctured the humid darkness of the car as he felt Joe’s rough fingers grip his cock. </p><p>Joe leaned back into the door, Don following him down into a semi-recline against the seat as they stroked each other and kissed more, his open mouth leaving slick tracks on Joe’s throat. He worried too late about leaving a mark, but Joe just turned his head to the side to offer Don more skin to kiss and lick and suck and bite. And all the while, he felt Joe’s warm breath against his ear, heard that sweet, gravelly voice encouraging him, building him up, believing in him. “Yeah Donnie, you’re doin’ so good, that’s so good...”</p><p>Eventually, Joe’s hand went still and his moans grew louder, and Don picked up his pace, feeling his forearm begin to burn as he stroked Joe’s cock faster, slowing only a little when, with one last, violent jerk of his hips, Joe’s body went rigid, his breath coming out in short, sharp puffs as he came into Don’s fist. </p><p>As Joe lay there catching his breath, Don watched the tension in his face melt away. An expression of complete and total peace seemed to wash over him, and he looked so happy, so content, that Don couldn’t help but reach out to him, graze his fingertips across his brow, down the ridges of his cheekbones, his jaw. Joe opened his eyes and smiled. </p><p>“Hey, you’re good at that.” </p><p>Joe sat up and took Don’s cock in his hand, and after a few seconds of his steady, practiced strokes, Don was fully hard again, and after a few more seconds, he was coming, jerking up into the circle of Joe’s hand as Joe stroked him through the waves of pleasure surging through him until they ebbed away and a blissful lethargy settled in. </p><p>They slumped against each other. Joe lay his head on Don’s shoulder and Don turned his chin to kiss Joe’s forehead. His skin was warm and sweating a little. Don tasted salt on his lips. </p><p>“You tired?” </p><p>Joe hummed and shifted to lean heavier into Don’s body. “I could sleep.” </p><p>Don kissed him again, more brusquely this time, and patted his cheek. He sat forward and opened the glove box, where he found a dirty shop towel to clean them up. It smelled like oil but it was better than nothing. </p><p>As he drove them back to his grandparents’ house, Don kept throwing quick side-glances at Joe, checking for what, he wasn’t quite sure. Regret, maybe. Anger. He knew that he probably had nothing to worry about, that Joe wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t wanted to, but he still couldn’t quite ignore the creeping fear that he’d just ruined the only real friendship he’d had since coming home. It didn’t occur to him to wonder if Joe might be wrestling the same fear. </p><p>But whatever was on his mind must not have been troubling him too much, at least not enough to prevent him from nodding off to sleep. Above the hum of the engine, Don could hear the quiet drone of Joe snoring, like a foghorn far away in the distance, calling the sailors home.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div>The morning sun flickered like a film projector through the tall trunks of the loblolly pines lining Highway 26. Don watched the stripes of light and shadow as they passed under the wheels, every once in a while stroking the palm of his left hand mindlessly over Skip’s rosary in his pants pocket. It had been a last-minute decision as he’d packed that morning. He’d opened the drawer looking for the ring of spare keys he kept in it and there they were, coiled in a little nest around the photo of Joe. He tucked them into his pocket without really even thinking about it.<p>But he was thinking about it now, as he drove them along the route he knew so well he could walk it blind. The few weeks he’d spent on the river just after his return from the war had been lonely and strange. The winter rains had begun in earnest, so he mostly stayed inside the cabin, tending the fire in the woodstove and losing track of time as he stared at the mesmerizing dance of the flames. The river was high from the rains, too high to take the boat out, and the trails were too soggy to hike, and hunting had lost its appeal entirely. There wasn’t much to do but sit by the fire and try not to think about Skip. </p><p>Deep down, he suspected that was probably why he’d brought the rosary. Winter had a way of washing out the memory of those endless, sun-drenched days, reminding you how cold and harsh life was most of the time. But there was something timeless and eternal about those summer days, some reassurance that there was a version of you, somewhere, who was always ten years old, running barefoot through the marsh grass with the bow and arrow you’d made yourself, feeling your wet skin dry in the sun and then jumping back in the water when you got too hot. A place where it was always summer. That first winter after the war, he’d almost forgotten, but he remembered now. It was summertime again. The blackberries were ripe and he’d made a promise, though he wasn’t sure it really mattered anymore. </p><p>There was a lot he wasn’t sure of. </p><p>He’d woken that morning with a disorienting feeling of not remembering where he was. That used to happen regularly when he was living at the Sigma Nu house, but only a couple of times since he’d moved in with his grandparents. At first he’d panicked, worried for a moment that he was still stuck in the terrifying chaos of the dream, but then the rest of the room came slowly into focus and he remembered the night before. A part of him wished <em>that</em> had been the dream.</p><p>Not the sex. The sex had been fantastic, maybe a little awkward at first, but thrilling and wild and pleasurable in ways he hadn’t expected. It was what happened after they’d gotten back to his grandparents’ house, the arguing in comic whispers over where Joe would sleep, Don trying to convince Joe that he wouldn’t be putting him out, and Joe insisting he’d be fine on the living room couch, calmly at first, and then angry and impatient when Don didn’t get it. He’d felt like such an idiot when it finally dawned on him that Joe didn’t want to sleep with him, didn’t want Don to see him undressed. Which had stung. After what they’d just done, Don couldn’t help feeling that he’d been rejected. </p><p>The next time he saw Joe, he was sitting at the kitchen table politely answering Don’s grandpa’s questions about where in Ireland his parents were from and what parish they’d belonged to and what they’d done for a living and why they’d come over. The brogue was back in his voice and he gave Don a brief, embarrassed smirk across the table before pulling his eyes away again, down to the plate that his grandma kept loading up with more scrambled eggs and corned beef hash. </p><p>“Couldn’t find a breakfast this good in a month of Sundays,” Joe said, and Gram blushed so red you’d have thought he was flirting with her. </p><p>“Why thank you, Joey.” </p><p>“It’s just ‘Joe’, Grandma.” </p><p>“It’s alright,” Joe said, giving her one of his shy, doe-eyed smiles. “That’s what my family calls me.” </p><p>She looked at Don pointedly and he let it go. He went into the living room to call his boss and ask for the rest of the week off, explaining that one of the folks had taken a bad fall and he was needed at home, so he missed the rest of Joe’s little charm offensive. Whatever it was, it must have been endearing as hell. When they were saying goodbye, Don got a pat on the cheek and a stern warning not to speed. Joe got a hug and a bottle of Tullamore Dew that Grandpa had wrapped in one of Gram’s embroidered dish towels. </p><p>But if Don thought the cloud they’d woken up under had faded, he was disappointed more with each passing mile. Gram had sent a thermos of coffee along and Don was shocked when he saw Joe tip a shot of the whiskey into his cup. It was just past nine-thirty in the morning. Don tried talking to him about what he wanted to do once they got to the cabin, but Joe said little, just sipped his spiked coffee and responded in grunts and monosyllables, and Don remembered how he used to do that during the war, how they’d all be sitting around drinking and shooting the shit and a look would cloud Joe’s face and he’d go all sullen and withdrawn, and nothing they could do or say could bring him out of it. Sometimes he’d just disappear, not coming back for an hour or more. Once it had worried Don so much that he’d gone out looking for him, and that’s when he’d found him out on that glass roof. But it didn’t seem to faze the others much. </p><p>“Don’t worry, he just give you the Joe Toye Goodbye,” Bill had said once.</p><p>“But that’s the thing, he didn’t say goodbye. He didn’t say anything.”</p><p>“Precisely.” Bill nodded, shrugged. “The Joe Toye Goodbye.” </p><p>Don wondered if that’s what he was getting now, a painfully drawn-out version of the old Joe Toye Goodbye. </p><p>They didn’t speak for a good thirty miles. Don turned on the radio, but was only half-listening. It wasn’t playing the kind of music he liked anyway. About five miles from the cabin, he pulled into the parking lot of the general store where his mom always used to buy her groceries.</p><p>“Coming in?” </p><p>Joe shook his head. </p><p>“Well how am I supposed to know what to get?” </p><p>“Whatever,” Joe said. “Anything. I don’t care.” </p><p>Don killed the engine and turned to face Joe. “Hey what the hell’s eating you, anyway? You haven’t said two words since we left Portland.” </p><p>“Nothing.” Joe raised his coffee cup to his lips again, but realizing it was empty, he cursed and lit a cigarette instead. </p><p>“Alright,” Don muttered. “I’ll be back in a little while.” </p><p>“Malark, wait.” </p><p>Joe shifted onto his left hip to dig his wallet out of his back pocket. He opened it and held out a rumpled five-dollar bill. “For the groceries.” </p><p>“It’s fine, I’ve got it.” </p><p>“Jesus Christ, would you just take it?” </p><p>“I said I’ve got it -”</p><p>“What’s wrong with my money?” Joe demanded angrily. He flicked the bill at Don and Don watched it flutter down his shirt to land in his lap. “I know you paid my phone bill,” he said, his voice trembling with barely-controlled rage. “You paid for me to come out here. You bought me dinner last night. Shit Malark, you wouldn’t even let me help with gas. Why won’t you take my money?” </p><p>Don blinked, sputtering a few confused, pathetic syllables. “I’m just - you’re my guest, Joe.” </p><p>“I don’t need your fuckin’ pity!”</p><p>“Well that’s good, because I don’t have any to give you,” Don snapped. </p><p>He got out of the car and slammed the door shut, not looking behind him.</p><p>When he walked out of the store twenty minutes later, arms loaded with groceries, Joe was leaning against the passenger door, smoking another cigarette. He dropped it to the ground and crushed it under his toe when he saw Don coming toward the car.</p><p>“Let me help you with those,” he mumbled, reaching for one of the bags. Don let him take it and together they walked around the back of the car, saying nothing as they carefully settled the groceries into the trunk amongst the luggage and sleeping bags and fishing rods. </p><p>“I don’t pity you,” Don said bluntly once they were on the road again. “That’s not why I bought your ticket to come out here.” He looked across the seat at Joe and smiled weakly. “I just wanted to see you again.” </p><p>Joe looked down at his lap. Don could see a bashful little smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. </p><p>“And last night. When you - “ Joe swallowed. “That wasn’t because -  “</p><p>“When I wanted to suck your cock and you wouldn’t let me? <em>That</em> last night?” </p><p>Joe laughed softly and looked down at his lap. “I thought maybe you were only doing that stuff because you felt sorry for me.”</p><p>Don shook his head. The playfulness in his voice faded to quiet sincerity. “No. I did it because I wanted to. I want to do lots of things with you. But only if you want to. It’s okay if you don’t.” </p><p>Joe lifted his head and turned it to look right at Don. He nodded. “Yeah. I want to.” </p><p>They reached for each other at the same time, their hands meeting in the middle of the seat. Don didn’t let go until they were pulling up to the cabin.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div>Don knelt by the side of the bed, sliding his hands up and down Joe’s parted thighs. Above him, Joe leaned back on his elbows, looking down at Don with a nervous intensity burning in his eyes. Tiny droplets of water still clung to his chest hair and his skin had that vaguely musky, brackish smell of the river. Don traced his fingertips around the criss-cross pattern of scars stretched tight around the stump where Joe’s right knee should have been with a sort of reverent curiosity, while his other hand crept higher up Joe’s left thigh and into the nest of soft hair between his legs. Joe sighed and his head dropped slowly back, his chin pointing up to the ceiling.<p>To say the swim had been Don’s idea wouldn’t really be accurate because to him, it was just the law of nature. When the sun reached that point in the sky when everything slowed down and the heat of day broke open like an egg, the thing to do was jump in the water, wash away the grime of afternoon and start the evening fresh. Don had been airing out the cabin, shaking rugs and sheets and blankets, sweeping, wiping, dusting, scrubbing. Joe was down by the shore, trying to get the fishing boat to start. The work had left them both sweaty and dirty, so once Don had gathered up all the cleaning rags and emptied the dustpan and put everything away in the lean-to again, he changed into his swimsuit and grabbed a couple of towels from the linen chest. </p><p>“There’s a pair of trunks for you on the bed,” he said to Joe as he walked out onto the dock. </p><p>Joe looked up briefly and then he looked again, and Don felt his gaze rake down his bare chest, the lines of his ribs, to the wispy hair below his navel disappearing under the waistband of his shorts. </p><p>“Thanks.” Joe’s voice was even raspier than usual. He wiped the sweat from his brow, leaving a thin streak of engine grease across his forehead. </p><p>Don hadn’t really expected Joe to join him, so he was surprised when, after just a few minutes, he heard the jangle of wrenches and screwdrivers being tossed back into the toolbox. Don had been floating on his back, trying to make his body into one long, straight line on the surface of the water, but he swam back to the dock when he saw Joe struggling to get out of the boat. </p><p>“Want some help?” </p><p>“No.” Joe braced himself on one of the dock posts and hauled his right leg up onto the plank. “I got it.” </p><p>When he came back a little while later, he was using the forearm crutches and the prosthesis was gone. The rounded end of what remained of Joe’s right leg after the fourth and final surgery had taken his knee peeked out from the leg of his swim trunks, which  hiked up a little every time he swung his body forward. He stopped at the end of the dock and just stood there a moment, looking at Don in the water. </p><p>Don drew his knees up to his chest and let his body sink further under the surface. It was a gesture of protection, an attempt to hide the shock knifing through him like a cold shard. He felt an acid churning in his stomach. It wasn’t nausea; more like that stinging, unsettled hunger  when he drank too much coffee, or when he woke up from one of those dreams he couldn’t quite remember, he just knew from that feeling in his stomach that it had been a bad one. Far off in his memory he could hear the artillery shells whistling and exploding, trees splintering, voices screaming for help. Joe. Bill. He blinked himself back into the present and reminded himself where he was. Nehalem. Summer. Safe. </p><p>“They fit okay?” </p><p>Joe looked down at the borrowed trunks. “Seem to.” He looked up at Don again. “Do they look okay?” </p><p>There was an anxious discomfort in the angle of his mouth, the worried arch of his brow, and Don knew he wasn’t talking about the swimsuit. </p><p>“You look great, Joe,” he said, trying his best to sound convincing. </p><p>Joe dropped the right crutch and began carefully to lower himself to sit. Don swam a few strokes against the lazy current to give him some privacy, but he kept a bead on him in his periphery, on the plump rounds of his biceps shining in the sun as he slid his butt to the end of the dock.</p><p>“How deep is it?” </p><p>“Not very.” Don stopped swimming and put his feet down on the muddy bed. He raised his arms. “See?” </p><p>Joe nodded, as though trying to gather his resolve, and then with one quick, deft push of his arms, he lifted himself off the cedar planks of the dock and dropped into the water. </p><p>He stayed by the end of the dock for a few minutes, splashing water on his chest and rubbing his hands over his skin like he was taking a bath. Don watched, feeling a familiar warmth humming through his limbs, pooling in his groin. As Joe swam toward Don, his sleek back slit the surface of the water like an otter. </p><p>“Colder than I thought it’d be.” Joe smiled, warm and inviting. He hadn’t smiled like that since the night before. </p><p>“Feels nice,” Don said. He closed his eyes and dropped his head back into the water, letting it cool his flushed face. He lifted his feet and began treading water, just to give the wild, frenetic energy in his muscles something to do. </p><p>Joe moved his arms in experimental arcs. Don could see his hips rolling back and forth under the surface as he got used to kicking with just one leg. Then, gaining confidence, he swam faster, those powerful arms propelling him forward, as though it took no effort at all. He was fifty yards away by the time Don cupped his hands around his mouth to call him back. </p><p>“Didn’t realize I could still do that,” Joe said with a note of bashful pride in his voice. </p><p>“You’re a natural, kid.” Don moved closer to him, until he felt Joe’s shoulder bump against his chest under the water. He wrapped his arms in a loose circle around Joe’s waist. Joe turned slightly to align their bodies and draped his arms around Don’s shoulders. Don’s hands fell to Joe’s hips. </p><p>“Can I touch it?”</p><p>Joe breathed a little laugh. “Sure.” He pressed his forehead to Don’s cheek. Don slid his hand down to the warm flesh of Joe’s thigh, and then lower, to the rounded stump where it ended. The skin felt tight and waxy under Don’s palm. </p><p>“Does it hurt?”</p><p>Joe shook his head. “Can’t even feel it.”</p><p>Don snuck his hand under the fluttering wet fabric of Joe’s trunks and squeezed his quadriceps muscle. “How about that?” </p><p>Joe closed his eyes and hummed; Don heard a tiny hitch in his breath. He moved his other hand higher to cup Joe’s ass, pulling him close enough to feel the bulge of Joe’s erection brush against his hip under the water. Joe sucked in a sharp breath and let it out slowly. Don felt a puff of air against his neck, and then the heat of Joe’s mouth, his lips kissing a wet trail up his throat, along his jaw. He tilted his chin to press his lips to Joe’s and Joe’s hands came up out of the water to thread his fingers through Don’s hair. He felt cold little streams sluice down the back of his neck as he kissed Joe deeper, wrapped his arms around him tighter. </p><p>He broke the kiss and pulled himself away.</p><p>“Let’s go inside.” </p><p>There was some brief awkwardness getting Joe out of the water, but once he had his crutches again he moved with surprising grace, and Don didn’t need to alter his pace at all. In the bedroom, they undressed quickly and dropped their trunks in a wet heap on the worn hardwood. Then Joe leaned his crutches against the headboard and sat down on the edge of the bed, his tongue darting out to wet the corners of his mouth as he beckoned with a quick flutter of his fingers for Don to come closer. </p><p>Don took two slow, shy steps up to the bed and laid his hands lightly on Joe’s shoulders. Joe scraped the blunt tips of his fingernails up and down Don’s thighs, smiling coyly as Don’s dick, which had softened in the transition from the river to the bedroom, swelled back to full hardness again. He opened his mouth and ducked his chin and then Don inhaled sharply as he felt the warm tip of Joe’s tongue tracing a line up the underside of his shaft. Joe gripped him at the base, licked a few teasing swirls around the head, and then sunk down, took Don’s cock deep into the soft, wet darkness of his mouth. </p><p>Don groaned and dug his fingers into the muscles of Joe’s shoulders. He felt Joe’s hands on his ass, warm against his skin still cool from the water. Joe’s head began to bob in a steady rhythm that gradually gained speed as Don’s moans grew louder, his breath more ragged and desperate. He could feel his orgasm building. The force was insistent, inexorable, and he didn’t try to hold it back. Joe’s mouth, his tongue, the wet slide in and out, the scrape of his teeth, the tight pressure and release, Joe’s hand alternating with his mouth, suck, stroke, suck stroke, faster and faster, until Don felt his balls tighten up and a sudden jolt of pleasure ripped through him and he was coming, spilling into Joe’s mouth as he moaned and jerked and spilled and moaned and came.</p><p>He stood there slumped over Joe for he didn’t know how long, leaning heavily onto his shoulders as he caught his breath. Joe gave him a little slap on his butt to wake him up and he laughed, straightened up. </p><p>“Jesus Christ,” Don mumbled. </p><p>Joe smiled and looked away. “So you liked it?” </p><p>“Yeah.” Don lowered himself to kneel. He clasped his hands around the small of Joe’s back. “I liked it a lot.” </p><p>He kissed Joe, tasting the salty, slightly bitter tang of his semen on Joe’s tongue. They just stayed there like that for a few moments, grinning at each other between tender, unhurried kisses. Then Don’s hands began roving over Joe’s back, his ribs, down to his hips. Joe ran his fingers through Don’s hair a few times, standing it up on end. </p><p>“You don’t have to, Malark -” </p><p>“I want to,” Don cut him off, his voice quiet and determined. </p><p>And then he was leaning in between Joe’s parted thighs, brushing his lips back and forth over his scars as he stroked Joe hard again and kissed a trail up his right thigh. He pressed Joe’s cock back against his navel as he swirled his tongue slowly around each of his balls and then licked a wet stripe up the seam to the base of his cock. Joe swore and dropped back onto his elbows. </p><p>Maybe it was because he’d just gotten the best blowjob of his life and it didn’t feel like any earthly trouble or worry could touch him, ever again, but the fact that Don had never done it before didn’t really bother him. He just did what he thought would feel good to him, sucking Joe’s cock into his mouth as deep as he could manage and making up for what he couldn’t with quick strokes of his fist. Every once in a while he glanced up at Joe, and the deep lines in his forehead, the dramatic, needy arch of his brows, the wide, quivering darkness of his open mouth reassured and energized him, and he sucked harder, stroked faster, until Joe was writhing underneath him, as though chasing some elusive pleasure he was worried he might not find, until he did, erupting into Don’s mouth with a sudden grunt and a sharp thrust of his hips. </p><p>Don swallowed. It seemed impolite not to. Joe’s body was a silent, motionless heap on the bed. Don lay down next to him, mirroring his position with knees bent, both feet on the floor. </p><p>“Hey.” Don rubbed the back of his index finger over the knob of Joe’s hip. “You alright?” </p><p>Joe hummed tiredly but didn’t open his eyes. “Who me? Right as rain.” </p><p>Don chuckled and shifted onto his side. He propped his cheek in his palm and draped his other arm around Joe’s waist. </p><p>“Not bad for a beginner, huh?”</p><p>Joe opened his eyes and smiled up at Don like the morning sun breaking over the mountains. </p><p>“No, Malark.” His voice had a weary, placating tone to it, but there was affection underneath it. He lifted his hand to touch Don’s cheek. </p><p>“Not bad at all.”</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div>Later, after a brief nap (drowsy, sun-bathed limbs tangled together in a languid sprawl) and a hastily-prepared supper (cold chicken sandwiches and milk, eaten naked in bed), Don dragged the rusty metal loveseat from the deck down to the circle of blackened rocks on the shore, where he built a fire from what was left of the winter cordwood.<p>There was something so inevitable about the way their bodies seemed to drift toward each other, like they each had a rich seam of something elemental and magnetic running through them, drawing each other in. Don leaned in to Joe as Joe leaned in to Don and in this way, they propped each other up, and were stronger like that than when they were standing on their own. The sky turned pink, then golden, then faded to a soft, milky gray as one by one the stars came out and the fireflies did their drunken zigzag through the gloaming. </p><p>The easy calm that had begun to seep into their bones as they lay in bed together earlier settled into complete and total peace, covering and protecting them like dust on a moth’s wings. The flames lit up Joe’s face like an idol at a shrine and Don became aware of a feeling he’d only read about in certain Romantic poems back in high school. For a moment, he felt a profound one-ness, a deep connection between him and Joe and the trees and the river and the wind and the stars, and for just that little moment, he wasn’t alone in the universe. He was part of something.</p><p>Suddenly, Joe’s hand shot up to point at the sky. </p><p>“Did you see that?” </p><p>“What?” </p><p>“A shooting star. You didn’t see it?” Joe’s face beamed and his voice was full of wonder. “It was right there.” </p><p>Don dropped his head back to rest against the back of the loveseat. “Maybe I’ll catch the next one.” </p><p>They were quiet for a few minutes. Don felt the anticipation expanding in his chest like a bubble. Then, jostled by the sudden jolt of Joe’s arm, it burst. </p><p>“Holy shit, there’s another one!” Joe’s laugh, enchanted, the silver tinkling of chimes. </p><p>“There usually is,” Don said, amused. “That’s why it’s called a meteor <em>shower</em>.” </p><p>“I’ve never seen one before.”</p><p>“Never?” </p><p>“In Pittsburgh?” Joe huffed a cynical laugh. “You’re lucky if you can see the moon.” </p><p>Don looked back up at the sky. “When I was a kid, I used to think that if you saw a shooting star, it was because God wanted you to see it.” A note of sad contemplation crept into his voice. “Like it was a little gift or something. Why else would you look up at that exact spot in the sky, at that exact moment? But then when I got older I realized that if you stare at the sky for long enough, you’re bound to see one. It’s just the law of averages.” </p><p>They went quiet again. Joe wrapped his arm around Don and he sunk deeper into the loveseat to lay his head on Joe’s shoulder. Don stretched his left leg across Joe’s lap, draping it over his right thigh. Joe winced. </p><p>“Oh shit.” Don quickly lifted his leg off of Joe’s lap, searching his face for pain. “I’m sorry.” </p><p>“No.” Joe put a strong hand on Don’s thigh and pulled in back onto his lap, a little higher this time. “It’s fine. You just found a tender spot.”</p><p>Don relaxed back against Joe’s side. Joe rubbed his hand up and down Don’s thigh like he was soothing an anxious dog. Then the rubbing stopped suddenly and Don felt Joe’s hand squeezing, and something in his pocket digging into his skin. </p><p>“What’s that?” </p><p>Don closed his eyes. Skip’s rosary. He’d nearly forgotten it. He slid his hand into his pocket and kept it there for a moment. </p><p>“Joe, did you -” he began haltingly. “Can I ask you a question? About the war.” </p><p>Joe shrugged “Sure.” </p><p>“Did you keep anything?” </p><p>A wry, joyless smile lifted one corner of Joe’s mouth. “No, but the VA give me a neat souvenir.” </p><p>Don nodded resignedly and looked down at his lap. He didn’t know what to say, how to explain it. If he should even try. But Joe persisted.</p><p>“What? What is it?”</p><p>He pulled the beads out of his pocket and handed them to Joe. </p><p>“What the hell happened to your rosary, Malark?” </p><p>“It’s not mine.”</p><p>Joe held the beads up to the firelight and looked at it a moment longer, then looked quickly back at Don. </p><p>“Fuck.” Joe’s voice was a hollow whisper. </p><p>“Yeah.” </p><p>“Fuck, Donnie,” Joe said again, a little louder. “You kept this?” </p><p>“Roe gave it to me.” He reached for the rosary, suddenly fearful of what might happen to it if he let it out of his care. “You think I should’ve sent it to his mother?” </p><p>“I don’t know.” </p><p>“Is that what you would have done?” </p><p>“I don’t know, Malark. It doesn’t matter.” </p><p>Don sat forward, leaning onto his elbows on his knees and folded his hands, the rosary looped around the backs of his fingers. He stared into the fire and didn’t speak for a long time. It must have started to worry Joe because after a few minutes, Don felt his hand rubbing gentle circles into the small of his back. He looked over his shoulder at Joe. </p><p>“Where do you think he is?” </p><p>A wrinkle of concern appeared in Joe’s forehead. “What do you mean?” </p><p>Don sighed and didn’t bother to clarify. He looked back into the fire but kept talking this time. </p><p>“I didn’t go see him. Roe asked if I wanted to but I…” he shook his head as his voice trailed away. He breathed a long, weary sigh that seemed to come from deep within his soul. “Now I wish I had.” </p><p>“Donnie…” Joe’s murmur was soft and pained. He sat forward and hooked his fingers over Don’s shoulder, pressing his mouth hard against the opposite arm. Don could feel his hot breath through the cotton of his t-shirt. </p><p>“That’s why people have funerals, right? To say goodbye? And I didn’t even...” His breath was coming in short, choked gasps and he struggled to swallow around the tightness in his throat. “I don’t even know where he is now.” </p><p>“He’s over there, somewhere,” Joe said softly, his voice muffled by Don’s shirt. “Some Army cemetery. The graves registration guys saw to all of that. I’m sure they gave him a funeral and did the prayers and everything.” </p><p>Don stared at the flames until the light burned his eyes and the edges of his vision went blurry. Joe didn’t get it and Don didn’t blame him for that. It wasn’t his fault. But he just didn’t get it. And how could Don tell him? How could he explain it, when he didn’t understand it himself, this feeling that had slowly eaten away at him for going on two years now, hollowing him out from the inside like a rotting tree. It didn’t matter how often he reminded himself of the very facts that Joe had just said or how fervently he prayed for God to watch over Skip’s soul. The memory of that day was still too vivid. It overshadowed everything else. One minute Skip was there and then he wasn’t there, and until Don knew where he’d gone, he knew he’d never shake this detached, untethered feeling, like he wasn’t really here either. </p><p>He looked up at the sky again, searching for some kind of a sign, a reassurance. A little gift. But there was nothing, just the vast, glacial silence of the universe.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div>The next morning, Don woke up early and alone.<p>After what he’d shared with Joe the day before, after the nakedness and honesty, and how together they’d begun to chip away at that mountain of what was still unsaid between them, he’d thought for sure Joe would sleep in the big bedroom with him. Instead, he’d muttered a quick “Night, Malark” as their bodies brushed against each other in the bathroom doorway and disappeared into the darkness at the other end of the hall. </p><p>But company would have been nice. Joe’s warm body next to his under the sheet, something strong and firm to lean back against or reach for when the memories he’d dredged up wouldn’t slip neatly back into the corners where he tried so hard to keep them hidden. Don supposed Joe had his reasons and that they were just as complex and unknowable as his own fucked-up inner melodrama, but still. It would have been nice. He tried not to take it personally. By the time he’d filled two pails with wild blackberries, he was mostly over it. </p><p>When he got back to the cabin, Joe was sitting in the adirondack chair on the deck, wrapped in the quilt from the bed. He was reading a book. </p><p>“What’s that?” Don asked. </p><p>Joe lifted the book so Don could see. He didn’t recognize the title or the girl in a prairie dress on the cover. </p><p>“Found it inside,” Joe said, his eyes glued to the page. “I think it’s a kid’s book.” </p><p>“Probably my sister’s. What’s it about?” </p><p>“Some redheaded tomboy and her brothers running wild in Wisconsin.” </p><p>“Yeah,” Don chuckled. “That sounds like Molly.” </p><p>“Listen, Malark.” Joe traced a line of text with his finger as he read. “<em>‘Their hair was the color of flame and sunset.’</em>” He looked up at Don and smiled. “Like yours.” </p><p>Their eyes met briefly, and then Don looked away, embarrassed by the fondness and affection softening the edges of Joe’s dark eyes. He set the pails down on the deck.  </p><p>“What’d you find?” Joe asked. </p><p>Don just smiled and picked a fat, heavy berry from off the heap and held it in front of Joe’s mouth until he opened his lips and let Don put the berry on his tongue. Don watched his eyes flare as he chewed, and he could practically feel the juice flooding his own mouth. He fed Joe another berry and then sat down on the wide arm of the chair, scooping up a handful of berries to share between them. </p><p>Joe went back to reading. Don ate berries and watched his eyes tracking the words across the page, his lips moving silently, coming together when he got to an ‘m’ or a ‘p’. It was endearing, the way Joe moved his lips when he read, and suddenly a strange and rather frightening feeling gripped Don’s heart. It was like a scared bird flapping its wings, wild and uncontrolled, and it made him want to throw himself at Joe, wrap that quilt tight around both of them and never let the cold wind touch their skin again. Instead of that, he raked his fingers across Joe’s scalp, making shiny furrows through his thick, wiry hair. </p><p>“What do you want to do today?”</p><p>Joe hummed and held up one finger. After a moment, he closed the book and set it down on the deck, and the movement caused the quilt to fall down off of his bare shoulders. </p><p>“Are you naked under there?” Don asked with a little laugh. </p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Are you sure?” </p><p>Joe held up one flap of the quilt to reveal a pair of soft, faded boxer shorts. Don slid his palm down Joe’s chest and rubbed it back and forth across his stomach. “I wouldn’t mind if you were,” he said, leaning in to kiss the shell of Joe’s ear and the smooth skin just behind it. </p><p>“Suppose I could oblige,” Joe husked. Don felt a hand dragging slowly up the inside of his right thigh. “But I don’t know what we’d do about the boat.” </p><p>Don sat up. “The boat? You got it running?” </p><p>Joe nodded. </p><p>“How?” </p><p>“Just flushed out the fuel line and cleaned the spark plugs. She’s not good as new or nothing like that, but she runs.” </p><p>Don looked at him with a little of the same awe with which he always used to regard Joe. “I’ll be damned. Since when do you know how to fix outboard motors?” </p><p>Joe just smiled shyly and shrugged. “I guess I like to tinker sometimes.”</p><p>“Yeah?” Don tried to play it cool but the dopey smile threatening to take over his whole face won out. “I might have somethin’ you can tinker with -” The last words dissolved into boyish laughter as Joe wrapped his arm around Don’s waist and abruptly pulled him down to his lap.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div>After breakfast, Don took Joe in the boat about a mile up river to show him the site of the old cabin, the one that burned down in the big Tillamook fire when he was just a kid. A look of sad nostalgia floated over Joe’s face as Don pointed out where the footings had been, almost like it had been his loss too. Don felt an odd need to comfort him.<p>“I guess nothing lasts forever,” he said, and that seemed to make Joe feel even worse. </p><p>“Donnie,” he said soberly. “That was your home.” </p><p>“Yeah.” Don felt something cold and sharp gnawing at the edges of his heart. Maybe Joe was right. Maybe his problem wasn’t that he couldn’t let things go, but that he didn’t give them the proper mourning they deserved. “At least no one was hurt.” </p><p>They moved on, past the woods where he used to pretend to be a child of the forest running wild and free, past the scrub grass where he’d hunted for quail. The memories came back in faint smudges in his periphery, a spectral voice, a whiff of something familiar on the breeze. Just at the point when Don thought he’d remembered it, it was gone again. They went further up the river, mile after slow mile, until they reached the island where he used to camp out, disappearing for days at a time and surviving by his wits and a tin of blackberry jam sandwiches his mom would always make sure to send along with him. </p><p>The idea was to catch some fish and fix shore lunch, the idea behind <em>that</em> idea being to impress Joe with his wilderness skills. But Joe was more interested in taking another swim, so they did that instead. Inevitably, they wound up lying in the soft pebbled bed of the shallows, jerking each other off as the water splashed against their hips and backs, swaying them gently further up the beach. </p><p>Afterwards, as they lay naked on the warm sand letting the sun and the heat wick away the water on their skin, Don turned to Joe and asked him how long he’d known. </p><p>“How long have I known what?” Joe murmured. Don traced a groove in the sand with his finger, shy all of a sudden, but as soon as Joe looked at him, he figured out what he’d meant. </p><p>“You mean how long have I known that I’m like this?”</p><p>“No.” Don swallowed. He still couldn’t look at Joe. “That I am.” </p><p>Joe rolled onto his back again. “I didn’t. Not really. I had an idea. The way you used to look at me. You had a… I don’t know. A softness to you.” </p><p>Don exhaled a sarcastic laugh. </p><p>“I don’t mean it like that, Donnie. I just mean that you - I felt like I could trust you. Like you were the only one wouldn’t judge me. And I guess I started to hope that maybe the reason you understood me so well was because you were that way too. But then you had that girl, so.” A hardness came into Joe’s voice again. “I made myself stop hoping.” </p><p>“I was, though,” Don said quietly. “And I did want you that way. It just took me longer to figure it out.” </p><p>They turned their heads toward each other at the same time, looked into each other’s faces from across a few inches of wet sand. </p><p>“Is that why you left that college?” Joe asked tentatively. “Did something happen there?” </p><p>Don’s eyes fluttered shut and he breathed a weak laugh. “No. Well, yes. But not like that.” </p><p>“What?” </p><p>Don took a long, deep breath. “Do you ever get the feeling that people would just rather not deal with us?” </p><p>“Us who?” Joe asked. “Queers?” </p><p>Don bristled at the word, and then immediately felt like a coward. “No. Vets.” </p><p>Joe blinked a few times and a thoughtful furrow appeared between his eyebrows. “Yeah. I do. Like sometimes when I’m getting on the bus, or at a crosswalk or something, and I’m on my crutches, I get these looks from people. It’s like they’re mad that I’m slowing them down, but they’re mad about something else too. It’s like I remind them of something they’d rather not think about.” </p><p>“Yeah.” Don nodded and looked back up at the sky. “I guess what’s what happened with college.” </p><p>“They were mean to you?” Joe’s voice had an undercurrent of rage. </p><p>“No, not mean,” Don said. “They just didn’t seem to care. I really struggled with exams. I’d study, but I just couldn’t seem to remember anything. And the one time I went in to talk to my professor about it, he acted like - well, like I was doing it on purpose or something. Like I was trying to waste his time. And then the fraternity, Christ. That was a whole other disaster.” </p><p>A bitter laugh rumbled through his chest, the humiliation and shame still fresh. How he’d terrorized everyone on the sleeping porch with his nightmares and how they’d gotten him back in the cruellest way, making a fool of him instead of asking how they could help. It made him more glad than ever that he’d called Joe that night a few weeks ago and he scooted closer to him, turned his head to look into his kind, handsome face. </p><p>Joe gave him a sad little half-smile and touched his cheek. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out, Malark. But you can’t give up. You belong there.” </p><p>“I don’t know where I belong, Joe.” His voice hitched unexpectedly and he blinked against a sudden blur of tears. <em>Except here</em>, he thought. <em>With you. Right now.</em> That obscure, thrilling feeling from the morning was back and he was beginning to understand a little better what to call it now. </p><p>That night they had another fire, and when they were drowsy from the smoke and the beer and the lingering exhaustion of lying out in the hot sun all day, Don wasn’t afraid to take Joe’s hand in his and ask him to please sleep with him in the big room. </p><p>“It’s not that I don’t want to,” Joe said. “It’s just - I have these dreams. I yell and sweat and -” His eyes fell to Don’s hands in his. “I don’t think you’d sleep very well.” </p><p>Don dropped his head to the side and pulled Joe’s gaze up to meet his. He spoke in a low, understanding voice. </p><p>“I told you, I have them too.” </p><p>“You do?”</p><p>Don nodded. “Maybe we’ll cancel each other out. Or maybe we’ll share one and it won’t be as bad.” </p><p>Joe snickered and gave Don a little punch in his stomach, and then followed him into the bedroom. They settled under the cool cotton sheets with a shy, almost innocent modesty. Joe even said a prayer. Then Don turned out the light and everything faded to a stillness so complete and simple that it reduced the whole world to only what Don could perceive with his senses. The curtain fluttering on the soft night breeze. The whine of the cicadas. The patch of wet moonlight falling across the quilt. And Joe’s body, warm and heavy, melting slowly into his.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The days flowed by like a river, swift in some places and slow and sluggish in others. Mornings were lazy, eating blackberries on the porch, reading, casting from the dock. Don never caught anything, but he never grew tired of winding up his reel and then flicking it out again, listening to the whir of the line unspooling and the plunk of the lure as it hit the water. In the afternoons they’d swim, nap, fool around. Nap some more. Cruise up the river, anchor the boat in an eddy to have lunch or take a dip or look for agates in the gravel beds. Don’s freckles darkened and he got a terrible sunburn on the back of his neck. Joe’s skin turned a buttery caramel shade that made Don want to lick him, which he frequently did. He tasted like sweat and cocoa butter and summertime. </p><p>One day they took the boat a few miles downstream. The current grew stronger as they got closer to the bay, and Joe asked him whether, if they kept going, they’d eventually reach the ocean. </p><p>“As the crow flies, yeah,” Don said. “But the boat wouldn’t survive the falls.” </p><p>“There’s waterfalls?” Joe was incredulous. “Where?” </p><p>Don nodded toward the water ahead of them. “About a half mile that way.” </p><p>“Shit Malark, we’d better turn around!” </p><p>Don laughed, a lazy, rumble in his chest. “I think we’ll be alright.” </p><p>A little ways from where the water dropped off, Don pulled the boat over to the bank and tied it up to one of the mooring posts sunk into the ground for that purpose. Then he and Joe walked up the trail to a wide, flat rock and looked down. </p><p>“Majestic, huh?” Don asked, his mouth twisted in an impish grin. </p><p>Joe’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “What?”</p><p>Don spread his arms out wide, as though they held all of the natural beauty of the world. “Nehalem Falls, Joe.” </p><p>Joe laughed. “This? Come on.” </p><p>Don dropped his hands to his hips and took an appraising look around. “Guess it’s not exactly Niagara, is it?” </p><p>Joe stepped closer to the edge, peering down at the clean, clear water falling over the ten-foot drop to the placid pool below. </p><p>“It’s okay Don,” he said. “It’s still pretty.” </p><p>Don pulled his shirt over his head and toed off his shoes. Joe watched, a tiny, cautious grin on his face, as Don unbuttoned his khaki trousers and let them drop around his ankles.</p><p>“Anyway, you can’t do this at Niagara.” He backed a few steps away from the ledge and then, with a running leap, hurtled himself over the falls and into the water. </p><p>The force of the plunge sucked him deep under. Millions of tiny bubbles skated up his skin as weeds swayed around his calves, tickled his ankles. He opened his eyes as he pulled himself back to the surface and he could see Joe still standing on the ledge, a dark, wavy blur propped by the slanted lines of his crutches. When his head broke through the water, Joe was laughing. </p><p>“You shoulda been in the Olympics, Malark!” </p><p>Don swam to the shore and climbed back up the rocks to help Joe undress. He offered to give him a good hard shove to make sure he cleared the ledge, but Joe had another idea. Don stood by his side, Joe’s hand on his shoulder to steady himself, as they crept up close to the edge. Then Joe raised both arms and with a little bend and a hop, executed a graceful dive. For a moment, Don saw all his limbs spread out wide against the trees, a screaming eagle, a shooting star streaking through the summer sky.</p><p>Later, after Don had tired of jumping from the rocks, they floated lazily in each other’s arms as the crashing of the falls lulled them into a state of semi-consciousness. Don’s toes bounced along the sandy bed, his arms around Joe’s ribs, Joe’s body hovering just under the surface and his head resting on Don’s shoulder.  </p><p>“What do you think?” he murmured against Joe’s wet cheek.</p><p>Joe hummed and stretched his arm back to comb his fingers through Don’s hair. “‘Bout what?”</p><p>“Oregon.” </p><p>Joe blinked his eyes open. His head swiveled slowly as he took in the falls and the rocks and the tops of the trees reaching up into the gauzy blue of the sky. Then he looked back at Don and closed his eyes, nestled his head deeper into the crook of Don’s shoulder. He breathed a deep, contented sigh.</p><p>“I think it’s heaven.”</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div>That night, as they sat before the fire again, a strange, nervous energy thrummed in Don’s veins. As the sky grew darker and the night carried them toward its inevitable conclusion, Joe’s face took on that look of lustful devotion that lit a different kind of fire in Don’s heart. He was happy, and he felt strong, and this emboldened him, strengthened his conviction that they both deserved more from life and there was no reason they shouldn’t have it. At the same time, he was terrified of doing anything that might upset this delicate balance they’d found together.<p>But there were certain truths that could not be denied. The way Joe’s body fell into his, so natural and trusting, no longer ashamed or embarrassed for Don to see him struggle or falter, even letting Don help him sometimes. He hadn’t bothered with the prosthesis since that first day, and didn’t flinch or recoil when Don stroked his right thigh or ran his palm over his scars. They’d settled into the changes and managed to salvage something nice from the rubble of the past, and even though it was hardly the sort of thing that would fit nicely into their regular lives back home, Don thought that maybe, together, they could make regular life fit into this instead. They could give it a go, at least. </p><p>Don was still trying to find the right words to explain these feelings when Joe picked up his hand and held it in both of his, brushed his lips over Don’s knuckles and asked in a soft, sweet voice what Don was thinking about.</p><p>Don gazed into the fire and was silent for a few moments, perhaps wanting to draw it out a little longer, this magic time when anything was still possible. He sighed, trying to steel his resolve. Joe squeezed his hand. </p><p>“I’m thinking…” He placed his other hand over Joe’s. Four hands, trying to keep something precious from slipping through their fingers. “What if I buy this place from my parents?” </p><p>Joe blinked. “What?”</p><p>“I’m serious. I’ve got a little money saved. And I’m sure they’d let it go for cheap, they hardly ever come here anymore.”</p><p>“What about college?” Joe asked carefully. “That’s an awful long commute.” </p><p>Don dismissed that thought with a brief shake of his head. “I’m not really thinking about college right now. And there are plenty of jobs out here. Farms, seining grounds. Young guys like us, we’d have no trouble finding -”</p><p>Joe tucked his chin and his hands slid out of Don’s grip. “Us?” </p><p>“Well - yeah. You and me.” Don tried to give Joe his most convincing smile, but he could already see the vision fading. “Wouldn’t that be great? If life could always be like this?”</p><p>Joe's head tipped casually toward his shoulder. “This ain’t life, Donnie. This is running away from it.” </p><p>The words stung Don like saltwater thrashing his eyes. He sat back and moved to the far side of the loveseat so they were no longer touching. A tiny flame of anger began to flicker in his chest while his stomach felt like it was turning to ice. </p><p>“Running away? You’re one to talk.” He tried to keep his voice even but the edges of the words were sharp and jagged. “Scraping by on your disability checks. Getting drunk every night, watching the world pass you by.” </p><p>A confused, hurt look came into Joe’s face, like a child who doesn’t understand why his favorite pet has suddenly turned tail and bitten him. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”</p><p>“I mean you’ve given up, Joe. You know you have.” </p><p>“Oh, and you know too, is that it?” Joe’s voice picked up like a cyclone, gathering rage and disgust and fury the longer it spinned. “You think you know just what it’s like for me, don’t you? You don’t know shit, Malark. You don’t know <em>shit.</em>” </p><p>“I know you could get a job, give yourself something to do other than sit around feeling sorry for yourself.” </p><p>Joe laughed, bitter. “It’s that easy, huh?"</p><p>“It is, actually,” Don said. “It’s in the G.I. Bill of Rights. They have to give you your old job back and if they can’t do that, they have to find something else for you.” </p><p>"Don't you think I tried that? Don't you think I went to every mine on the Pittsburgh seam, Donnie? And they all tell me the same thing." He sat forward suddenly, like he was about to stand but then changed his mind. Gripping the edge of the seat with both hands, he looked down at the empty trouser leg folded under his right thigh. “There is nothing else.” </p><p>“Well then you can go to school, learn a trade," Don said. "Look at how easy you fixed up the boat. You don’t need two legs to fix engines, Joe.” </p><p>Joe looked up at him and Don saw the shadow of defeat darkening his lovely, sad eyes. He hated himself a little for making Joe feel bad, but he was too caught up in his own hurt and disappointment to walk back from it. So he persisted, past the point when he knew it no longer mattered.</p><p>“Have you even looked into it, Joe? You’ve got so many opportunities and you’re just letting them go to waste.”</p><p>“Opportunities?” The shock in Joe’s voice was deceptively fragile. “You wanna talk to me about opportunities, Malark?” His anger roared to life and it looked to Don like he was shaking a little, struggling to maintain control over the agitated, jerking movements of his limbs. “How about college. What happened to that opportunity, huh? Didn’t you like the food? Did they make you read too many books?”</p><p>“I already told you,” Don snapped. “Just shut up about that.”  </p><p>“Oh that’s right, some frat guys made fun of you so you packed your bags and quit." He fished a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his pocket and lit one. He didn't offer the pack to Don. He took a deep drag and then blew the smoke out on a long, silent exhale. "Look, don’t talk to me about opportunities, alright? I never had any. And you had more than anyone I ever knew."</p><p>A pathetic, defensive laugh escaped Don's throat. "That's not -"</p><p>"Look around you, Malark!” Joe raised his arms into the night sky, gesturing into the dark. “Look where you grew up. You had mountains, rivers, trees. The whole goddamn ocean. You got space to dream.” He took another drag on his cigarette, shaking his head a little as he stared at the coals, but he looked to Don like he was seeing into the dark and narrow hallways of the past, into his own broken heart. “All I got was tunnels.” </p><p>“Well at least I don’t spend all my time moping over what I lost,” Don said. “At least I’m trying to move on.”</p><p>“Move on?” Joe leaned in close and spoke in a quiet, serious voice. Don could smell the smoke on his breath. “Donnie, you can’t let go of some broken prayer beads that ain’t even yours.”</p><p>Don felt something cold and sharp splinter right through the center of him, breaking him into pieces. He struggled to breathe for a moment, and then he got up, took a few steps toward the fire and just stood there for a few moments with his hand in his pocket, clutching Skip’s rosary. When he turned around to face Joe again, it was like he was speaking to him from across a vast, unbridgeable chasm. Like he was yelling down a long pipe. </p><p>“I guess you’re right, Joe,” he said meekly. “It’s time to stop running away.”</p><p>“Donnie…” Joe’s voice was so quiet Don could scarcely hear him. He ignored it. He looked up at Joe, his gaze unflinching as he stared into Joe’s eyes through the wavy heat lines of the fire.</p><p>“It’s time to go home.”</p><p>He turned and trudged across the lawn to the house, leaving Joe sitting there under the distant shimmering blanket of the heavens.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><p>They stood together on the rocky ledge of the Nehalem Falls. Behind them stretched the winding, twisting ribbon of the Nehalem River, where Don had made all of his best memories. Below them was the calm, clear pool where they’d swam together just a few days ago. Ahead of that, the river rolled on, narrowing again and picking up speed as it tumbled and gurgled over rocks and shoals, emptying eventually into the Nehalem Bay before finally joining with the Pacific Ocean.</p><p>Don dropped his head back to feel the sunshine on his face. He breathed deeply, trying to capture the scent of freshwater and pine and the smoke from the breakfast fires, preserve it somewhere deep inside where he could always bring it back when he needed to remember this week and what it had meant for him. For them. He opened his eyes and looked at Joe. </p><p>“It’s a good place,” Joe said. “He’ll like it here.” </p><p>They’d made up almost immediately after the fight. Don had sat down on the sunken living room couch and waited for Joe to come in and when he did, he rushed to him, apologizing for the terrible things he’d said, promising he hadn’t meant them, not really. Joe was sorry too. They agreed that fighting was an awful waste of the precious little time they had left together and then went to bed, holding each other close all through the restless, gray hours of the night. </p><p>Don woke up early. He sat drinking coffee at the kitchen as the wan blue light of dawn filled the cabin. When Joe woke up, they began to clean and pack and put everything to rights again. They said little to each other as they worked, but Don could sense that Joe knew what he’d decided, the thing he had to do before they could leave this place behind. </p><p>Joe nodded at him, a signal that it was time. Don straightened up and took Skip’s rosary from his pocket. </p><p>“Do you want to say some words or something?” Joe asked. “A prayer?” </p><p>“I don’t know.” Don’s hand shook as he rubbed his fingers over the beads. “Do you want to?” </p><p>Joe held out his hand. Don laid the rosary gently in the bed of his palm. Joe bowed his head to make it easier to bring the crucifix to his lips. </p><p>“Nicest guy I ever met,” Joe said softly. “Always had a smile for everyone...” His voice trailed off and he started breathing funny, taking short, stuttering breaths through his nose. “Miss you, buddy.” </p><p>Joe handed the rosary back to Don. He took a long, deep breath and exhaled through his mouth, like he was trying to brace himself before a jump into very cold water. </p><p>“I promised I’d bring you here, Skip.” </p><p>And that was as far as he got before everything around him started to go all black and he felt like his head was separating from his body. His knees wobbled, threatening to give out, and he carefully lowered himself to sit before they did. After a moment, he felt Joe’s hand on his shoulder as he slowly sat down beside him. </p><p>“It’s okay, Don." Joe rubbed his hand in soothing motions back and forth over Don’s shoulders. “It’s okay.”</p><p>Don shook his head and wiped his wet eyes on his shirtsleeve. He held the rosary a couple of feet from his face so that it looked like part of the landscape, a broken string of beads descending from the sky, the tip of the cross just barely touching the surface of the water. He brought them to his face and held the cross to his lips as he murmured one last prayer. Then, with a gentle sweep of his hand, he tossed the rosary into the river. He watched as the current picked it up, as it slipped over the ledge of the falls and then disappeared into the frothy, churning water.</p><p>“Is that it?” He looked at Joe, fighting to explain what he meant, the thing he’d needed to know ever since that terrible day. “Is he really gone now? Forever?” </p><p>Joe shook his head. "No. I don't think so."</p><p>Tears blurred Don's vision again and his voice strained to force the sound out. “Where is he?”</p><p>Joe wrapped his arm around Don. He looked out again at the tops of the trees and the river below, and then turned the warmth of those soft eyes back on Don. “I think he’s everywhere now.” </p><p>Don’s shoulders crumpled, his body folding in on itself as he finally let the tears come. </p><p>“He was my best friend,” he mumbled into Joe’s chest, over and over, repeating it like a prayer. </p><p>
  <em>He was my best friend. He was my best friend. He was my best friend. </em>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><p>Joe was the first one on the train. </p><p>They’d gotten to the station early so he could find his seat and get his bag stowed without having to endure those impatient, dirty looks he’d told Don about. But then it seemed silly to leave him there by himself when the train didn’t leave for another forty-five minutes, so he and Don walked the platform a while, bought some cigarettes and Wrigley’s at the little newsstand. Joe walked easily alongside Don, propelling his body forward with the crutches, the prosthesis buried at the bottom of his bag. </p><p>Don looked up at the broad white face of the clock above the ticket booth with a sinking feeling in his heart. As long as Joe was still standing here next to him, he didn’t have to think about the moment when the train would take him away, but now the time they had left had shrunk to almost nothing. </p><p>Joe looked at the clock too, and then back at Don with a wistful smile on his face. “I suppose.” </p><p>“Yeah.” Don tried to smile back, but his heart wasn't in it. They turned and headed back to the carriage. </p><p>“I’ll call you on Wednesday,” Don said when they’d stopped outside the door. </p><p>“Save your pennies for college, Malark,” Joe said with a knowing little smirk. Don rolled his eyes. “At least wait until Saturday, then.” </p><p>“Wednesday,” Don said. “And you’d better pick up.” </p><p>Joe nodded and looked down at the ground, the muscles of his jaw tensing and relaxing. Don wanted to pull him into his arms, offer him some comfort, but there was little he could do here, now. He held out the book he’d been holding, the cover darkened in places by the sweat from his palm. </p><p>“For the train." </p><p>“But this is your sister’s.”</p><p>“She won’t miss it,” Don said. “And if she does, I’ll get her another one.” </p><p>Joe balanced for a moment on his left leg as he slid the book under the waistband at the back of his pants. “Thank you. For everything.” </p><p>Don gave him a brief nod and then looked out at the platform. More passengers were starting to board the train now and he was becoming concerned about getting Joe into his seat. </p><p>“Well, come on, then.” He began to take Joe by the arm to help him to the door, but Joe stopped him. </p><p>“Donnie, wait.” </p><p>“What?”</p><p>“I uh -” Joe glanced around the platform for a moment, seeming nervous all of a sudden. “I lied to you.”</p><p>Don breathed a surprised laugh. “When?” </p><p>“At the cabin. I said I didn’t keep anything from the war.” He took something out of his pants pocket, a little card no bigger than about four inches square, and slipped it into Don’s shirt pocket. </p><p>“That’s what I kept.” He held his hand to Don’s chest for a moment and Don could feel it, warm and firm through the cotton. “Don’t look at it until I’m gone.” </p><p>"Okay, Joe. I promise." Don smiled, holding Joe's gaze for a moment. Then they shook hands, each fearful to say anything lest the tide of emotions roiling inside of them might come crashing out and flood the whole world. </p><p>“Wednesday?” Joe asked tightly. </p><p>“Yeah.” Don’s voice cracked a little and he cleared his throat. “Wednesday.” </p><p> Joe took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and turned to walk up the steps and onto the train. </p><p>Don managed to make it to the car before he took the little card out of his pocket. It wasn’t a card. It was a photo of him and Joe, taken at the Palace Pub during one of those wild London weekends. It was smudged and a little blurry, with deep creases in it, as though it had been balled up and then flattened out again. But no amount of time or wear could dim the light of their smiles, their heads tilted toward each other as they raised their pints of beer in a toast to friendship and camaraderie and loyalty and devotion, all those things that had knit them so tightly together in the first place. </p><p>Don blinked around a rim of tears and turned the photo over. </p><p><em>“To Don Malarkey,”</em> the inscription read. <em>“The best friend I ever had (even though he’s already got one). Yours til Nehalem Falls, Joe Toye.”</em></p><p>“Joe,” Don whimpered, the plaintive sorrow in his voice echoing through the silence of the car. The sound died out and suddenly, a different feeling began to sweep through him, and it was stronger than the sadness and regret and powerlessness of their goodbye. As he drove back home, he composed a letter in his head, repeating the words aloud so he wouldn’t forget them. </p><p>
  <em>You’re my best friend</em>
</p><p>He stopped at the red lights and made the turns with a calm, almost eerie composure, as though guided by some hidden force, wise and ancient as time. </p><p>
  <em>my wild blackberries, my shooting stars</em>
</p><p>He pulled into the driveway and bounded up the porch steps, rushed through the kitchen and down the stairs to the basement.</p><p>
  <em>don’t go so far away, Joe</em>
</p><p>He opened the drawer of his nightstand and rifled around until he found a pad of paper and a pencil. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he began furiously to write it all out. </p><p>
  <em>“You’re my best friend, Joe. You’re my wild blackberries and my shooting stars and my promised land.”</em>
</p><p>He was so caught up in getting it down exactly as it had come to him that he didn’t hear the telephone ringing or his grandma’s steps shuffling across the living room floor above, her voice from the top of the stairs.</p><p>“Donnie?”</p><p>“<em>Please don’t go so far away. Stay with me."</em> </p><p>“Donnie, did you hear me?”</p><p><em>”I love you Joe, I’ve always loved you.</em>” </p><p>He signed his name so hard he broke the lead tip off of the pencil. Hastily, he folded the paper and then began searching the drawer again for an envelope, throwing old cards and handkerchiefs and other detritus onto the bed. If he could get it into today’s mail, it would get to Joe by the time he arrived home. If he could just find a goddamn stamp - </p><p>“Donald Malarkey, would you please -” </p><p>Don slammed the drawer shut and groaned impatiently. “<em>What</em>, Gram?” </p><p>A pause. He heard her shift her weight and sigh in frustration. When she spoke again, her voice was serene and composed. </p><p>“Telephone.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I drew heavily on Malarkey's memoir, <em>Easy Company Soldier</em> for this. The title is a riff on the phrase "hell's half acre", which he uses a lot in the book. If you haven't read it, do yourself a favor and change that ASAP. It's wonderful and you will probably cry. </p><p>The Pipeline thing was inspired by this story I heard on NPR a few years ago about tricks people used to play with old-timey phone lines. When I started imagining the phone as a metaphor for Don reaching out in search of connection to what he's lost, I remembered it and decided it could also be a good vehicle for him starting to dip his toes in the gay scene. That said, I have no idea if people were actually using it for that purpose in Portland during the post-war years. </p><p>I was also very inspired by the poem "Birches" by Robert Frost. I thought of it after reading the part in Don's book where he remembers traveling entire city blocks in Astoria by swinging from the supple branches of the alder saplings. So I read that poem probably 20 times as I wrote this, especially these lines:</p><p>
  <em>I'd like to get away from earth awhile<br/>And then come back to it and begin over.<br/>May no fate willfully misunderstand me<br/>And half grant what I wish and snatch me away<br/>Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:<br/>I don't know where it's likely to go better.<br/>I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,<br/>And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk<br/>Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,<br/>But dipped its top and set me down again.<br/></em>
</p><p>Also, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6DAJiZGPZ8ISPrBKtkiwJd?si=59d7f970006a4ece">there's a playlist</a> (because of course there is), featuring a lovely recording of the folk song Don sings to Joe over the phone.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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